
Class PR448 

Book >Q7 

I 873 







/ 






OSORIO: 

A TRAGEDY. 



-AfCflf 



080RI0 



A TRAGEDY 



As Originally Written in 1797 



SAMUEL TATLOE COLERIDGE 



NOW FIRST PRINTED FROM A COPT RECENTLY DISCOVERED BY TBE 

PUBLISHER WITH THE VARIORUM READINGS OF " REMORSE" 

AND A MONOGRAPH ON THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY 

IN ITS EARLIER AND LATER FORM BY THE 

AUTHOR OF " TENNYSONIANA" 




LONDON 

JOHN PEARSON YORK STREET COVENT CxARDEN 

1873 



A 



% 



t^\ 



A 



LONDON : 

PRINTED BY JAS. WADE, 

TAVISTOCK STKEET, COVES T GARDEN. 










DEDICATED, 

BY PEEMISSION, 
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 

SIE JOHN DUKE COLERIDGE, 

ar.P. FOE EXETER, 

H.M.'S ATTQENEY-GENEEAL, &C, &C, 

BY HIS 

OBLIGED AND FAITHFUL SERVANT, 

THE . PUBLISHER. 



York Street, Covent Garden. 
August, 1873. 



A Monograph on 

COLEBIDGE'S "OSOKIO." 



In the summer of 1797 two of the greatest of 
modern English poets, Coleridge and Wordsworth, 
met for the first time at Eacedown in Dorsetshire. 
Wordsworth was in his twenty- eighth and Coleridge 
in his twenty-fifth year, in the spring-tide of his 
creative faculty. He had come over on a visit to 
Wordsworth from Nether- Stowey in Somerset- 
shire, where he had been engaged in writing the 
tragedy of Osorio. Wordsworth was also occupied 
with a tragedy, The Borderers, which was com- 
pleted in the following November, offered to the 
managers of Covent Garden Theatre, and sum- 
marily rejected by them, and which only saw the 
light forty- five years afterwards. 

The story of the fortunes and misfortunes of 
Coleridge's Osorio, with which alone we are con- 
cerned here, will take longer to tell.. 



VI A MONOGRAPH ON 

Charles Lamb writes to Coleridge (June 
13th, 1797):— "Lloyd tells me that Sheridan 
put you upon writing your tragedy. I hope 
you are only Coleridgeizing when you talk of 
finishing it in a few days. Shakespeare was a 
more modest man ; but you best know your own 
power." 

During the time of the visit above-mentioned, 
Miss Wordsworth writes from Eacedown to a 
friend : — " After tea he (Coleridge) repeated 
to us two acts and a half of his tragedy, 
Osorio" Coleridge writing at the time of this 
visit to his friend Cottle (June, 1797) says : — 
"He (Wordsworth) admires my tragedy, which 
gives me great hopes." 

In a letter received by Cottle from Coleridge 
soon after, he says : — " I shall now stick close to 
my tragedy (called Osorio), and when I have 
finished it, shall walk to Shaftesbury to spend a 
few days with Bowles." This letter, as was 
usual, has no date, but a letter from Words- 
worth]* determines about the time when Cole- 
ridge had nearly completed his play. Words- 
worth says, under date September 13, 1797 : — 
" Coleridge is gone over to Bowles with 
his tragedy, which he has finished to the 



COLERIDGE S " OSORIO. VU 

middle of the fifth Act. He set off a week 
ago."* 

In the meantime, Wordsworth himself was hard 
at work on The Borderers. Both the poets, how- 
ever, were doomed to witness the disappointment 
of their hopes. 

" William's play," says Miss Wordsworth 
(20th Nov., 1797), " is finished, and sent to the 
managers of the Covent Garden Theatre. We 
have not the faintest expectation that it will be 
accepted." On 21st Dec. she writes : — " We have 
been in London : our business was the play ; and 
the play is rejected. It was sent to one of the 
principal actors at Covent Garden, who expressed 
great approbation, and advised William strongly 
to go to London to make certain alterations." 
" Coleridge's play," she adds, ** is also rejected ;" 
and for this she expresses great sorrow and dis- 
appointment. 

In the following year (1798) two scenes from 
Osorio, under the titles of The Dungeon and The 
Foster-Mother* s Tale, were published, together with 
other pieces by Coleridge, in the volume of Lyrical 

* Early Recollections, chiefly relating to the late Samuel 
Taylor Coleridge, during his long residence in Bristol. By 
Joseph Cottle. Lond., 1837. Pp. 234,235. 



VU1 A MONOGRAPH ON 

Ballads which he produced conjointly with Words- 
worth. Here, with the omission of some of the 
opening lines of the latter scene, they continued 
to appear in the successive editions of 1800, 1802, 
and 1805. 

" The manuscript of Osorio" says Mr. Gillman, 
" had been sent to Sheridan, who did not even 
acknowledge the receipt of the letter which 
accompanied the drama ; he, however, observed 
to a friend that he had received a play from 
Coleridge, but there was one extraordinary line 
in the Cave Scene, drip, drip, which he could 
not understand : ' in short,' said he, ' it is all 
dripping.' This was the only notice he took of 
the play ; but the comment was at length repeated 
to the author through the medium of a third 
party."* 

In reference to this celebrated story, the accom- 
plished daughter of the poet writes as follows : — 

" The * dripping,' whatever its unction may once 
have been, is stale enough now; but the story 
has freshness in it yet. Such neglects as that of 
Mr. Sheridan in not returning the MS. of Remorse 
are always excusable in public men of great and 

* Gillman's Life of Coleridge (Pickering, 1838), p. 265. 



COLERIDGE S " OSORIO. IX 

various occupation ; but the lesson to the 
literary aspirant is just the same as if he had 
been ever so blameable. 

" I repeat this story as told by Mr. Coleridge 
himself, because it has been otherwise told by 
others. I have little doubt that it was more 
pointedly than faithfully told to him, and can 
never believe that Mr. Sheridan represented a 
ludicrous line as a fair specimen of the whole 
play, or his tenacious adherence to it as the reason 

for its rejection However, in lighter moods, 

my father laughed at Sheridan's joke as much as 
any of his auditors could have done in 1806, and 
repeated with great effect and mock solemnity, 

" ' Drip ! — Drip ! — Drip ! — nothing but dripping.' 

When first written this play had been called 
Osorio, from the principal character, whose name 
my father afterwards improved into Ordonio. I 
believe he in some degree altered, if he did not 
absolutely recast, the three last acts after the 
failure with Mr. Sheridan, who probably led him 
to see their unfitness for theatrical representation. 
But of this point I have not certain knowledge. 
.... After all, I am happy to think that this 
drama is a strain of poetry, and like all, not only 



X A MONOGRAPH ON 

dramatic poems, but highly poetic dramas, not to 
be fully appreciated on the stage."* 

On the stage, nevertheless, after a lapse of 
fifteen years, it was destined to be performed with 
brilliant success, at the very theatre where it had 
before been so ignominiously rejected. This happy 
result was owing mainly to the good offices of 
Lord Byron, whose interest at the newly-rebuilt 
house secured its acceptance. The generous aid 
so opportunely extended by the noble poet to his 
less fortunate brother is one of the pleasantest 
episodes in the history of the much-maligned 
author of Childe Harold. 

In Crabb Bobinson's Diary we find the follow- 
ing entry, under date Nov. 3rd, 1812 : — " Coleridge 
informs me that his tragedy is accepted at Drury 
Lane. Whitbread admires it exceedingly, and 
Arnold, the manager, is confident of its success." 

Under date " Keswick, Jan. 17, 1813," Southey 
writes to his friend C. W. Wynn: — " Coleridge's 
tragedy, which Sheridan and Kemble rejected 
fifteen years ago, will come out in about a fortnight 
at Drury Lane." 

* Biographical Supplement to the Biographia Literaria 
(1847). By the late Sara Coleridge. Pp. 412—415. 



COLERIDGE S OSORIO. Xi 

After its successful appearance, Southey wrote 
to Grosvenor Bedford (Jan. 27, 1813) :— "I never 
doubted that Coleridge's play would meet with a 
triumphant reception. Be it known and remem- 
bered hereafter, that this self- same play, having 
had no other alterations made in it now than 
Coleridge was willing to have made in it then, was 
rejected in 1797 by Sheridan and Kemble. Had 
these sapient caterers for the public brought 
it forward at that time, it is by no means 
improbable that the author might have pro- 
duced a play as good every season; with my 
knowledge of Coleridge's habits I verily believe 
he would."* 

The tragedy, which had been remodelled with 
a view to stage effect, was performed for the first 
time, under the title of Remorse, at Drury Lane 
Theatre on Saturday, Jan. 23, 1813. The Pro- 
logue was written by Charles Lamb, and the 
Epilogue by the author himself. The success was 
immediate and decisive, and the play had a run of 
twenty nights. The cast of the characters was as 
follows : — 



* Soutfiey's Life and Correspondence (LoncL, 1850), iv., 
12, 13. 



Xll A MONOGRAPH ON 

Marquis Valdez, Father to the two } ™ p 

brothers, and Donna Teresa's Guardian ) 

Don Alt ae, the eldest son Mr. Elliston. 

Don Ordonio, the youngest son Mr. Bae. 

Monviedro. a Dominican and Inquisitor . Mr. Powell. 
Zulimez, the faithful attendant on Alvar . Mr. Crooke. 
Isidore, a Moresco Chieftain, ostensibly a) M -p. ~ 

Christian ... ... ... ^ j Me. Db Camp. 

Familiars op the Inquisition. 

Naomi Mr. Wallace. 

Moors and Servants, &c. 

Donna Teresa, an Orphan Heiress Miss Smith. 

Alhadra, wife to Isidore Mrs. Glover. 

Crabb Robinson thus records his presence on 
the first night : — 

"Jan. 23rd, 1813. — In the evening at Drury 
Lane, to see the first performance of Coleridge's 

tragedy, Memorse My interest for the 

play was greater than in the play, and my 
anxiety for its success took from me the feeling 
of a mere spectator. I have no hesitation in say- 
ing that its poetical is far greater than its dramatic 
merit, that it owes its success rather to its faults 
than to its beauties, and that it will have for its 
less meritorious qualities applause which is really 
due to its excellences. Coleridge's great fault 
is that he indulges before the public in those 
metaphysical and philosophical speculations which 
are becoming only in solitude or with select minds. 
His two principal characters are philosophers of 



COLERIDGE S " OSORIO. Xlll 

Coleridge's own school ; the one a sentimental 
moralist, the other a sophisticated villain — both 
are dreamers. Two experiments made by Alvar 
on his return, the one on his mistress by relating 
a dream, and the other when he tries to kindle 
remorse in the breast of Ordonio, are too fine- 
spun to be intelligible. So when Ordonio 
enigmatically reproaches Isidore with his guilt, 
he tries the cunning of his audience to find out 
his drift. However, in spite of these faults, of 
the improbability of the action, of the clumsy con- 
trivance with the picture, and the too ornate and 
poetic diction throughout, the tragedy was received 
with great and almost unmixed applause, and was 
announced for repetition without any opposition." 
The following notice in the Examiner* we may 
suppose to have been written by Leigh Hunt : — 
" The fable is managed and developed with a 
rapidity which never languishes, an intelligibility 
which a child might follow, and a surprise which 
would keep awake the most careless attention. 
The skill, indeed, with which the situations are 
disposed, so as to create effect, would have done 
honour to a veteran dramatist; for this, we 
suppose, Mr. Coleridge is indebted to his 

* January 31, 1813. 



XIV A MONOGRAPH ON 

acquaintance with the German drama, which, in 
the hands of Schiller at least, redeems all its 
faults by its excellence, and among its other 
striking beauties, abounds in the picturesque. 
We never saw more interest excited in a theatre 
than was expressed at the sorcery-scene in the 
third act. The altar flaming in the distance, the 
solemn invocation, the pealing music of the mystic 
song, altogether produced a combination so awful 
as nearly to overpower reality, and make one half 
believe the enchantment which delighted our 
senses. The characters most laboured by the 
author are Ordonio and Alhadra. Both are 
developed with a force of thinking and a power 
of poetry which have been long strangers to the 
stage, and the return of which we hail as the 
omen of better days. In none of his works has 
Mr. Coleridge exhibited so much of his senti- 
mental and descriptive power, so little deformed 
with his peculiar affectations. His images have 
his usual truth and originality without their usual 
meanness : his tenderness is as exquisite as in his 
best pieces, and does not degenerate into his usual 
whining." 

The following criticism of Remorse is from the 
Times of Monday, Jan. 25, 1813 :— 



COLERIDGE S " OSORIO. XV 

"The drama was presented for the first time 
on Saturday, and called, or in the more scru- 
pulous phrase of the author, is to be called, Re- 
morse. The plot was singularly involved and 
laboured. . . . 

" Mr. Coleridge is a poet, and it would be next 
to impossible that a work of his could be utterly 
destitute of poetic value ; but he is one of a school 
whose conceptions scorn the bounds of humble 
taste, and his ' vaulting ambition hath o'erleapt 
them all.' There are, however, intermingled with 
those fierce ventures, occasional passages of true 
poetic cadence. The speech of the Moresco 
woman, describing her imprisonment, is a strong 
and deep picture of feelings that could scarcely be 
coloured too strongly. Her story of her husband's 
murder is finely told ; her eager listening, — her 
hearing his last groan from the bottom of the 
chasm, — her finding his sword, — and her solemn 
determination to have blood for blood, did honour 
to the capacity that conceived and expressed them ; 
and in defiance of the foolish blasphemy, in which 
she is made to talk about ' plucking the dead out 
of Heaven,' and other exploded plagiarisms from 
the German school, the whole dialogue of the part 
received great applause. 



XVI A MONOGRAPH ON 

. . . . " We speak with restraint and unwil- 
lingly of the defects of a work which must have 
cost its author so much labour. We are peculiarly 
reluctant to touch the anxieties of a man who 
has already exhibited talent, and whose various 
acquirements and manly application of them 
deserve the favour of those who value literature. 
But to conceal the truth is only to do final injury, 
and it must be acknowledged that this drama has 
sins, nay, a multitude, almost beyond the covering 
of charity. Its first fault is its unwieldy length : 
it was almost five hours long. Its next is its 
passion for laying hold of everything that could 
allow an apology for a description. Murderers 
stop short with the dagger in their hands to talk 
of ' roses on mountain sides ;' fathers start back 
from their children to moralise ; and a lover, in 
the outrage of disappointed love, lingers to tell 
at what hour of the day he parted from his 
mistress, — how she smiled, and how the sun 
smiled, — how its light fell upon the valleys, and 
the sheep, and the vineyards, and the lady, — and 
how red her tears were in ' the slant beam.' This 
may be poetical, but it has no connexion with 
the plain, rapid, and living truth of the drama. 
There is an essential difference in those two 



COLERIDGE S " OSORIO. XVli 

branches of the art. With the mere poet, time 
is as nothing, — he may wonder and rest, and 
indulge his eye — like a pilgrim offer his hymn at 
every shrine by the way — and then resume his 
sandals and his staff, and pace onward to the 
altar of his patron. To the dramatist, time 
is as everything. He has not a moment to waste, 
— he carries an important mission, — life and 
death are hanging on his steps, — and he musl 
speed forward without venturing to turn his eye 
from that spot in the horizon which at every 
moment enlarges as he speeds, and where his 
coming is to agitate or appease so many hearts. 
We are slow to speak of faults as applied to this 
writer : but he has not yet learned this value of 
time. His plot is intolerably curved and circuitous, 
indistinct beyond all power of pleasurable appre- 
hension, and broken beyond all reach of continued 

interest 

" The Prologue was, we hope, by some ' d d 

good-natured friend,' who had an interest in 
injuring the play;* it was abominable. The 

* Poor Lamb ! One can imagine the mingled dismay and 
amusement with which he must have read the above pleasant 
piece of criticism; and the jokes that Avere doubtless cut on 
the subject at his next Wednesday evening supper. — Ed. 

b 



XV111 A MONOGRAPH ON 

Epilogue seemed to come from the same hand, 
and had precisely the same merits. It seemed to 
be composed for the express purpose of trying 
how many pure stupidities might be comprised in 
fifty lines, and how far Miss Smith's popularity 
might be proof against her performance. This 
specimen of her recitation was singularly lachry- 
mose and lamentable. The applause was violent 
at the fall of the curtain." 

The Morning Post of the same date says : — 
" The Epilogue is lively, and makes several happy 
hits at some of the reigning follies of the day." 

The Theatrical Inquisitor for February, 1813, 
says : — " The Prologue and Epilogue were among 
the most stupid productions of the modern muse ; 
the former was in all probability a Eejected 
Address, for it contained many eulogiums on the 
beauty and magnificence of the ' dome ' of Drury ; 
talked of the waves being not quite dry, and 
expressed the happiness of the bard at being the 
first whose muse had soared within its limits. 
More stupid than the doggerel of Twiss, and more 
affected than the pretty verses of Miles Peter 
Andrews, the Epilogue proclaimed its author and 
the writer of the Prologue to be par nobile fratrum, 
in rival dulness both pre-eminent." 



COLERIDGE S " OSORIO. XIX 

On Feb. 14, 1813, Coleridge wrote thus to 
his friend Poole : — " The receipt of your heart- 
engendered lines was sweeter than an unexpected 
strain of sweetest music ; — or in humbler phrase, 
it was the only pleasurable sensation which the 

success of the Remorse has given me No 

grocer's apprentice, after his first month's per- 
mitted riot, was ever sicker of figs and raisins than 
I of hearing about the Remorse. The endless 
rat-a-tat-tat at our black-and-blue bruised door, 
and my three master fiends, proof-sheets, letters, 
— and worse than these — invitations to large 
dinners, which I cannot refuse without offence 
and imputation of pride (&c), oppress me so that 
my spirits quite sink under it. I have never 
seen the play since the first night. It has been 
a good thing for the theatre. They will get eight 
or ten thousand pounds by it, and I shall get 
more than by all my literary labours put together ; 
nay, thrice as much." 

Two years after the success of Remorse, Lord 
Byron wrote to Coleridge from " Piccadilly, March 
13, 1815," urging him to make a second attempt : 
— " In Kean there is an actor worthy of express- 
ing the thoughts of the characters which you 
have every power of embodying, and I cannot but 



XX A MONOGRAPH ON 

regret that tlie part of Ordonio was disposed of 
before his appearance at Drury Lane. We have 
had nothing to be mentioned in the same breath 
with Remorse for very many years, and I should 
think that the reception of that play was sufficient 
to encourage the highest hopes of author and 
audience." 

"With the calmer criticism which the lapse of 
half a century brings, Mr. Swinburne writes of 
Remorse in these measured terms : — " There is 
little worth praise or worth memory in the Remorse 
except such casual fragments of noble verse as 
may readily be detached from the loose and friable 
stuff in which they lie imbedded. In the scene 
of the incantation, in the scene of the dungeon, 
there are two such pure and precious fragments 
of gold. In the part of Alhadra there are lofty 
and sonorous interludes of declamation and reflec- 
tion. The characters are flat and shallow ; the 
plot is at once languid, violent, and heavy." * 

In the original Osorio, however, these " frag- 
ments of noble verse" are much more numerous 
and frequent than in the play as remodelled to 
suit the exigencies of the stage. Speaking of the 

* Swinburne's Essay on Coleridge (1860), xiv., xv. 



COLERIDGE S " OSORIO/ XXI 

beautiful scene from the first draft of the 
tragedy, the Foster-Mother's Tale, and of another 
fragment omitted in the drama, but printed in an 
appendix to the later editions, the poet's surviv- 
ing son thus writes : — " Both these scenes appear 
more or less necessary for the perfect understand- 
ing of the plot. If there were many such curtail- 
ments, or if for the sake of a more rapid action 
the reflective character of the piece were in any 
degree sacrificed, it might almost be regretted 
that the rejected Osorio, for such was the original 
title, had not been preserved as it came from the 
author's pen."* 

Now that the original Osorio is at length given 
to the world, and placed beyond the chance of 
future loss, the reader will see that there were many 
such curtailments, amounting not only to innumer- 
able verbal'differences, all the most important of 
which are indicated in footnotes, but to the 
omission of whole scenes of great poetic beauty 
and the entire remodelling of others. Preserved 
from destruction by one of those strange and 
unaccountable freaks of chance or fortune which 



* Preface to the Dramatic Works of S. T. Coleridge, by 
the Rev. Derwent Coleridge (1852). 



XX11 MONOGRAPH ON " OSORIO. 

seem little short of miraculous, the transcript of 
Osorio, retained and treated with such contumely 
by Sheridan, and long supposed to be lost, has 
come forth from its hiding-place and reached our 
hands. In giving publicity to this interesting 
relic of one of the greatest of modern English 
poets, we shall be doing a service to all who love 
noble verse, and to all who honour and reverence 
the name of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 



[The Publisher desires gratefully to acknow- 
ledge the kind suggestions received from the 
poet's son, the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, in the 
course of the present undertaking.] 



OSORIO: 



A TRAGEDY, 



O S O E, I O : 

A TRAGEDY. 



ACT THE FIKST. 

Scene. — The sea shore on the coast of Granada* 
Velez, Maria. 

maeia. 

I hold Osorio dear : lie is your son, 
And Albert's brother. 

VELEZ. 

Love him for himself, 
Nor make the living wretched for the dead. 

MARIA. 

I mourn that you should plead in vain, Lord 
Velez ! 

* For the opening scene added in the published Remorse, 
see Appendix at the end of this volume. 

B 



Z OSORIO : 

But Heaven hath heard my vow, and I remain 
Faithful to Albert, be he dead or living. 

VELEZ. 

Heaven knows with what delight I saw your loves ; 
And could my heart's blood give him back to thee 
I would die smiling. But these are idle thoughts ! 
Thy dying father comes upon my soul 
With that same look, with which he gave thee 

to me : 
I held thee in mine arms,* a powerless babe, 
While thy poor mother with a mute entreaty 
Fix'd her faint eyes on mine : ah, not for this, 
That I should let thee feed thy soul with gloom, 
And with slow anguish wear away thy life, 
The victim of a useless constancy. 
I must not see thee wretched. 

MARIA. 

There are woes 
Ill-barter'd for the garishness of joy ! 
If it be wretched with an untired eye 
To watch those skiey tints, and this green ocean; 
Or in the sultry hour beneath some rock, 
My hair dishevell'd by the pleasant sea-breeze, 

* In my arms. — Remorse (1813). 



A TRAGEDY. 3 

To shape sweet visions, and live o'er again 
All past hours of delight ; if it be wretched 
To watch some bark, and fancy Albert there ; 
To go through each minutest circumstance 
Of the bless'd meeting, and to frame adventures 
Most terrible and strange, and hear him tell 

them: 
(As once I knew a crazy Moorish maid, 
Who dress'd her in her buried lover's clothes, 
And o'er the smooth spring in the mountain cleft 
Hung with her lute, and play'd the self-same tune 
He used to play, and listen'd to the shadow 
Herself had made) ; if this be wretchedness, 
And if indeed it be a wretched thing 
To trick out mine own death-bed, and imagine 
That I had died — died, just ere his return ; 
Then see him listening to my constancy ; 
And hover round, as he at midnight ever* 
Sits on my grave and gazes at the moon ; 
Or haply in some more fantastic mood 
To be in Paradise, and with choice flowers 
Build up a bower where he and I might dwell, 
And there to wait his coming ! O my sire ! 
My Albert's sire ! if this be wretchedness 

* Or hover round, as he at midnight oft. — Remorse. 



4 OSORIO : 

That eats away the life, what were it, think you, 
If in a most assured reality 
He should return, and see a brother's infant 
Smile at him from my arms ? 

[Clasjring her forehead. 
what a thought?* 
'Twas horrible ! it pass'd my brain like lightning. 

VELEZ. 

'Twere horrible, if but one doubt remain' d 
The very week he promised his return. 

MARIA. 

Ah, what a busy joy was ours — to see him 
After his three years' travels ! tho' that absence 
His still-expected, never-failing letters 
Almost endear' d to me ! Even then what 
tumult !f 

* The line following- is omitted in Remorse, and the reply 
of Valdez runs : — 

" A thought ? even so ! mere thought ! an empty thought, 
The very week, &c." 

f The ahove speech is thus altered in Remorse : — 

Ter. {abruptly.) Was it not then a husy joy ? to see him 
After those three years' travels ! we had no fears — 
The frequent tidings, the ne'er-failing letter, 
Almost endear'd his absence ! Yet the gladness, 
The tumult of our joy ! What then if now 



A TRAGEDY. 



VELBZ. 



power of youth, to feed on pleasant thoughts 
Spite of conviction ! I am old and heartless ! 
Yes, I am old — I have no pleasant dreams — 
Hectic and unrefresh'd with rest. 

mama [with great tenderness].. 
My father ! 

VELEZ. 

Aye, 'twas the morning thou didst try to cheer me 
With a fond gaiety. My heart was bursting, 
And yet I could not tell me, how my sleep 
Was throng'd with swarthy faces, and I saw 
The merchant- ship in which my son was captured — 
Well, well, enough — captured in sight of land — 
We might almost have seen it from our house-top ! 

maria [abruptly']. 
He did not perish there ! 

velez [impatiently]. 

Nay, nay — how aptly thou forgett'st a tale 
Thou ne'er didst wish to learn — my brave Osorio 
Saw them both founder in the storm that parted 



6 OSORIO : 

Him and the pirate : both the vessels founder'd.* 

Gallant Osorio ! 

[Pauses, then tenderly. 

O belov'd Maria, 

Would' st thou best prove thy faith to generous 

Albert 

And most delight his spirit, go and makef 

His brother happy, make his aged father 

Sink to the grave with joy ! 

MARIA. 

For mercy's sake 
Press me no more. I have no power to love him ! 

* Ter. {with great tenderness.) My father ! 

Vald. The sober truth is all too much for me ! 
I see no sail which brings not to my mind 
The home-bound bark in which my son was captured 
By the Algerine— to perish with his captors ! 

Ter. Oh no ! he did not ! 

Vald. Captured in sight of land ! 

From yon hill point, nay, from our castle watch tower 
We might have seen 

Ter. His capture, not his death. 

Vald. Alas ! how aptly thou forgett'st a tale 
Thou ne'er didst wish to learn ! my brave Ordonio 
Saw both the pirate and his prize go down, 
In the same storm that baffled his own valour, 
And thus twice snatch'd a brother from his hopes. — Remorse. 

f Go thou, make. — lb. 



A TRAGEDY. / 

His proud forbidding eye, and his dark brow 
Chill me, like dew- damps of the unwholesome 

night. 
My love, a timorous and tender flower, 
Closes beneath his touch. 

VELEZ. 

You wrong him, maiden. 
You wrong him, by my soul ! Nor was it well 
To character by such unkindly phrases 
The stir and workings of that love for you 
Which he has toil'd to smother. 'Twas not well — 
Nor is it grateful in you to forget 
His wounds and perilous voyages, and how 
With an heroic fearlessness of danger 
He roamed the coast of Afric for your Albert. 
It was not well — you have moved me even to tears. 

MARIA. 

O pardon me, my father ! pardon me. 

It was a foolish and ungrateful speech, 

A most ungrateful speech ! But I am hurried 

Beyond myself, if I but dream of one* 

Who aims to rival Albert. Were we not 

Born on one day, like twins of the same parent ? 

* If I but hear of one. — Remorse. 



8 osorio : 

Nursed in one cradle ? Pardon me, my father ! 
A six years' absence is an heavy thing ; 
Yet still the hope survives 

velez [looking forwards'] . 
Hush — hush ! Maria. 

MARIA. 

It is Francesco, our Inquisitor ; 

That busy man, gross, ignorant, and cruel ! 

Enter Francesco and Alhadra. 

FRANCESCO [to VELEz]. 

Where is your son, my lord ! Oh ! here he comes.* 

Enter Osorio. 
My Lord Osorio ! this Moresco woman 
(Alhadra is her name) asks audience of you. 

* The three preceding speeches are thus altered in 
Bemorse : — 

Void, {looking forwards.) Hush ! 'tis Monviedro. 
Ter. The Inquisitor, on some new scent of blood ! 

Enter Monviedeo with Alhadea.. 
Monv. (Jiaving first made his obeisance to Vaedez and 
Teeesa.) Peace and the truth he with you! 
Good, my lord, 
My present need is with your son. 

(Looking forward. 
We have hit the time. Here comes he ! Yes, 'tis he. 



A TRAGEDY. \) 

OSORJO. 

Hail, reverend father! What may be the 

business ? 

FRANCESCO. 

O the old business — a Mohammedan ! 

The officers are in her husband's house, 

And would have taken him, but that he mention'd 

Your name, asserting that you were his friend, 

Aye, and would warrant him a Catholic. 

But I know well these children of perdition, 

And all their idle falsehoods to gain time ; 

So should have made the officers proceed, 

But that this woman with most passionate outcries, 

(Kneeling and holding forth her infants to me) 

So work'd upon me, who (you know, my lord !) 

Have human frailties, and am tender-hearted, 

That I came with her. 

OSORIO. 

You are merciful.* 

[Looking at Alhadra. 

* Thus in Remorse : — 

Ordon. Hail, reverend father ! what may he the husiness ? 

Mon. My lord, on strong suspicion of relapse 
To their false creed, so recently abjured, 
The secret servants of the Inquisition 



10 0S0RI0 : 

I would that I could serve you ; but in truth 
Tour face is new to me. 

[Alhadba is about to speak, but is interrupted by 

FBANCESCO. 

Aye, aye — I thought so ; 
And so I said to one of the familiars. 
A likely story, said I, that Osorio, 
The gallant nobleman, who fought so bravely 
Some four years past against these rebel Moors ; 
Working so hard from out the garden of faith 
To eradicate these weeds detestable ; 
That he should countenance this vile Moresco, 

Have seized her husband, and at my command 

To the supreme tribunal would have led him, 

But that he made appeal to you, my lord, 

As surety for his soundness in the faith. 

Tho 5 lessen'd by experience what small trust 

The asseverations of these Moors deserve, 

Yet still the deference to Ordonio's name, 

Nor less the wish to prove, with what high honour 

The Holy Church regards her faithful soldiers, 

Thus far prevail'd with me that 

Ord. Reverend father, 

I am much beholden to your high opinion, 
Which so o'erprizes my light services. 

(then to Alhadba. 
I would that I could serve you ; but in truth 
Your face is new to me. 



A TRAGEDY. 11 

Nay, be his friend — and warrant him, forsooth ! 
Well, well, my lord ! it is a warning to me ; # 
Now I return. 

ALHADRA. 

My lord, my husband's name 
Is Ferdinand : you may remember it. 
Three years ago — three years this very week — 
You left him at Almeria. 

Francesco [triumphantly'] . 

Palpably false ! 
This very week, three years ago, my lord ! 
(You needs must recollect it by your wound) 
You were at sea, and fought the Moorish fiends 
Who took and murder' d your poor brother 
Albert.f 

* Thus in Remorse : — 

Mon. My mind foretold me 

That such would he the event. In truth, Lord Valdez, 
'Twas little probable, that Don Ordonio, 
That your illustrious son, who fought so bravely 
Some four years since to quell these rebel Moors, 
Should prove the patron of this infidel ! 
The guarantee of a Moresco's faith ! 
Now I return. 

f You were at sea, and there engaged the pirates, 

The murderers doubtless of your brother Alvar ! — Remorse. 



12 OSORIO : 

[Maria, holes at Francesco with disgust and 
horror. Osorio's appearance to be collected from 
the speech that follows. ,] 

Francesco [to Yelez and pointing to Osorio]. 
What ? is he ill, niy lord ? How strange he looks ? 

velez [angrily']. 

You started on him too abruptly, father ! 
The fate of one, on whom you know he doted. 

osorio [starting as in a sudden agitation]. 

heavens ! I doted ! 

[Then, as if recovering himself. 
Yes ! I doted on him ! 
[Osorio walks to the end of the stage. Yelez 
follows soothing him.] 

maria [her eye following them]. 

I do not, cannot love him. Is my heart hard ? 
Is my heart hard ? that even now the thought 
Should force itself upon me — yet I feel it ! 

FRANCESCO. 

The drops did start and stand upon his forehead 
I will return — in very truth I grieve 



A TRAGEDY. 13 

To have been the occasion. Ho ! attend me, 
woman ! 

ALHADRA [to MABIA]. 

O gentle lady, make the father stay 
Till that my lord recover.* I am sure 
That he will say he is my husband's Mend. 

MARIA. 

Stay, father, stay — my lord will soon recover. 

[Osorio and Yelez returning. 

osorio [to Velez as they return]. 

Strange ! that this Francesco 
Should have the power so to distemper me. 

VELEZ. 

Nay, 'twas an amiable weakness, son ! 

FRANCESCO [to OSORIO]. 

My lord, I truly grieve 

OSORIO. 

Tut ! name it not. 
A sudden seizure, father ! think not of it. 

* Until my lord recover. — Remorse. 



14 OSORIO : 

As to this woman's husband, I do know him : 
I know him well, and that he is a Christian. 

FRANCESCO. 

I hope, my lord, your sensibility* 
Doth not prevail. 

OSORIO. 

Nay, nay. You know me better. 
You hear what I have said. But 'tis a trifle. 
I had something here of more importance. 
[Touching his forehead as if in the act of recollection. 

Hah! 
The Count Mondejar, our great general, 
Writes, that the bishop we were talking of 
Has sicken' d dangerously. 



FRANCESCO. 



Even so. 



OSORIO. 

I must return my answer. 

FRANCESCO. 

When, my lord ? 
* Your merely human pity. — Bemorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 15 

OSORIO. 

To-morrow morning, and shall not forget 
How bright and strong your zeal for the Catholic 
faith. 

FRANCESCO. 

You are too kind, my lord ! You overwhelm me. 

OSORIO. 

Nay, say not so. As for this Ferdinand,* 

'Tis certain that he was a Catholic. 

What changes may have happen' d in three years, 

I cannot say, but grant me this, good father ! 

I'll go and sift him :f if I find him sound, 

You'll grant me your authority and name 

To liberate his house. 

FRANCESCO. 

My lord you have it .% 

* The twelve preceding lines are omitted in the printed 
Remorse, which runs on : — 

M011. I hope, my lord, your merely human pity 
Doth not prevail 

Ord. 'Tis certain that he was a Catholic, &c. 

f Myself I'll sift him. — Remorse. 

X This speech is thus amplified in Remorse : — 
Your zeal, my lord, 
And your late merits in this holy warfare 
Would authorize an ampler trust — you have it. 



16 OSOEIO : 

osoeio [to alhadea] 
I will attend you home within an hour. 
Meantime return with us, and take refreshment.* 

ALHADEA. 

Not till my husband's free, I may not do it. 
I will stay here. 

maeia [aside]. 

Who is this Ferdinand ? 

VELEZ. 

Daughter ! 

MAEIA. 

With your permission, my dear lord, 
I'll loiter a few minutes, and then join you.f 

[Exeunt Yelez, Feancesco, and Osoeio. 

ALHADEA. 

Hah ! there he goes. A bitter curse go with him, 
A scathing curse ! 

[Alhadea had been betrayed by the warmth of 
her feelings into an imprudence. She checks herself, 
yet recollecting Maeia's manner towards Feancesco, 
says in a shy and distrustful manner] 

You hate him, don't you, lady ! 

* The second line of this speech is assigned to Valdez in 
Remorse. 

f I'll loiter yet awhile t' enjoy the sea breeze. — Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 17 

MARIA. 

Nay, fear me not ! my heart is sad for you. 

ALHADRA. 

These fell Inquisitors, these sons of blood ! 
As I came on, his face so madden' d me 
That ever and anon I clutch' d my dagger 
And half unsheathed it. 

MARIA. 

Be more calm, I pray you. 

ALHADRA. 

And as he stalk' d* along the narrow path 
Close onf the mountain's edge, my soul grew eager. 
'Twas with hard toil I made myself remember 
That his foul officers J held my babes and husband. 
To have leapt upon him with a tiger's plunge 
And hurl'd him down the ragged precipice, 
O — it had been most sweet ! 

MARIA. 

Hush, hush ! for shame. 
Where is your woman's heart ? 

* walk'd — Remorse. 
f Close by.— lb. 
I his familiars. — lb. 



18 



OSORIO 



ALHADRA. 



gentle lady ! 
You have no skill to guess my many wrongs, 
Many and strange. Besides I am a Christian, 
And they do never pardon,* 'tis their faith ! 

MARIA. 

Shame fall on those who so have shown it to 
thee! 

ALHADEA. 

I know that man ; 'tis well he knows not me ! 
Five years ago, and he was the prime agent. 
Five years ago the Holy Brethren seized me. 

MARIA. 

What might your crime be ? 

ALHADRA. 

Solely my complexion. f 
They cast me, then a young and nursing mother, 
Into a dungeon of their prison house. 
There was no bed, no fire, no ray of light, 
~No touch, no sound of comfort ! The black air, 

* Christians never pardon. — Remorse. 

f I was a Moresco ! 
They cast me, &c. — lb. 



TRAGEDY. 19 

It was a toil to breathe it ! I have seen 

The gaoler's lamp, the moment that he enter' d, 

How the flame sunk at once down to the socket.* 

miserable, by that lamp to see 

My infant quarrelling with the coarse hard bread 
Brought daily : for the little wretch was sickly — 
My rage had dried away its natural food ! 
In darkness I remain'd, counting the clocksf 
Which haply told me that the blessed sun 
Was rising on my garden. When I dozed, 
My infant's moanings mingled with my dreams £ 
And waked me. If you were a mother, lady, 

1 should scarce dare to tell you, that its noises 
And peevish cries so fretted on my brain 
That I have struck the innocent babe in anger ! 

MARIA. 

O G-od ! § it is too horrible to hear ! 

* It was a toil to breathe it ! When the door, 
Slow opening at the appointed hour, disclosed 
One human countenance, the lamp's red flame 
Cower'd as it enter'd and at once sank down. — Remorse. 

f counting the bell. — lb. 

X with my slumbers. — lb. 

§ O Heaven ! &c. — lb. 



20 OSORIO : 

ALHADRA. 

What was it then to suffer ? 'Tis most right 
That such as you should hear it. Know you not 
What Nature makes you mourn, she bids you 

heal? 
Great evils ask great passions to redress them, 
And whirlwinds fitliest scatter pestilence. 

MARIA. 

You were at length deliver' d ?* 

ALHADRA. 

Yes, at length 
I saw the blessed arch of the whole heaven. 
'Twas the first time my infant smiled ! No more. 
For if I dwell upon that moment, lady, 
A fit comes on,f which makes me o'er again 
All I then was, my knees hang loose and drag, 
And my lip falls with such an idiot laugh 
That you would start and shudder ! 

MARIA. 

But your husband ? 

* You were at length released ? — Remorse. 
t A trance comes on. — lb, 



A TRAGEDY. 21 

ALHADRA. 

A month's imprisonment would kill him, lady ! 

MARIA. 

Alas, poor man ! 

ALHADRA. 

He hath a lion's courage, 
But is not stern enough for fortitude.* 
Unfit for boisterous times, with gentle heart 
He worships Nature in the hill and valley, 
Not knowing what he loves, but loves it all ! 

[Enter Albert disguised as a Moresco, and in 
Moorish garments.'] 

albert [not observing maria and alhadra]. 

Three weeks have I been loitering here, nor ever 
Have summon' d up my heart to ask one question, 
Or stop one peasant passing on this way.f 

MARIA. 

Know you that man ? 

* He hath a lion's courage, 
Fearless in act, but feeble in endurance. — Remorse. 

f This speech is omitted in Remorse. 



22 



030RIO 



ALHADRA. 

His person, not his name. 
I doubt not, he is some Moresco chieftain 
Who hides himself among the Alpuxarras. 
A week has scarcely pass'd since first I saw him ; 
He has new-roof'd the desolate old cottage 
Where Zagri lived — who dared avow the prophet 
And died like one of the faithful ! There he lives, 
And a friend with him. 

MARIA. 

Does he know his danger 
So near this seat ? 

ALHADEA. 

He wears the Moorish robes too, 
As in defiance of the royal edict. 

[Alhadra advances to Albert, who has walked 
to the bach of the stage near the rocks. Maria drops 
her veil.'} 

ALHADRA. 

Gallant Moresco ! you are near the castle 
Of the Lord Velez, and hard by does dwell 
A priest, the creature of the Inquisition.* 

* The four preceding speeches are thus altered in 
Remorse : — 

Ter. Know you that stately Moor ? 
Alhad. I know him not : 



A TRAGEDY. 23 

albeet [retiring]. 
You have mistaken me — I am a Christian. 

ALHADRA [to MARIA]. 

He deems that we are plotting to ensnare him. 
Speak to him, lady ! none can hear you speak 
And not believe yon innocent of guile. 
[Albert, on hearing this, pauses and turns round. 

MARIA. 

If aught enforce you to concealment, sir ! 

ALHADRA. 

He trembles strangely. 

[Albert sinks down and hides his face in his 
garment.'] 

But doubt not he is some Moresco chieftain, 
Who hides himself among the Alpuxarras. 

Ter. The Alpuxarras ? Does he know his danger, 
So near this seat ? 

Alhad. He wears the Moorish robes too, 

As in defiance of the royal edict. 

[Alhadea advances to Alvae, who has walked to the 
back of the stage near the rocks. Teeesa drops her 
veil.] 
Alhad. Gallant Moresco ! An inquisitor,. 
Monviedro, of known batred to our race 



24 



OSORIO : 



MARIA. 

See — we have disturb' d him. 

[Approaches nearer to him. 
I pray you, think us friends — uncowl your face, 
For you seem faint, and the night-breeze blows 

healing. 
I pray you, think us friends ! 

albert [raising his head]. 

Calm — very calm ; 
'Tis all too tranquil for reality ! 
And she spoke to me with her innocent voice. 
That voice ! that innocent voice ! She is no 

traitress ! # 
It was a dream, a phantom of my sleep, 
A lying dream. 

[He starts up, and abruptly addresses her. 
Maria ! you are not wedded ? 

Maria [haughtily to alhadra]. 
Let us retire. 

[They advance to the front of the stage. 

ALHADRA. 

He is indeed a Christian. 

* The rest of the speech is omitted in Remorse. 
f The rest of this speech and the two following speeches 
are omitted in Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 25 

Some stray Sir Knight, that falls in love of a 
sudden. 

MARIA. 

What can this mean ? How should he know my 

name? 
It seems all shadowy. 

ALHADRA. 

Here he comes again. 

albert [aside]. 
She deems me dead, and yet no mourning 

garment ! # 
Why should my brother's wife wear mourning 

garments ? 
God of all mercy, make me, make me quiet !f 

[To Maria. 
Tour pardon, gentle maid! X that I disturb'd you. 
I had just started from a frightful dream. 

ALHADRA. 

These renegado Moors — how soon they learn 

* yet wears no mourning garment. — Remorse. 

f This line is omitted in Remorse. 

X Your pardon, noble dame ! — Remorse. 



26 osorio : 

The crimes and follies of their Christia.ii 
tyrants !* 

ALBERT. 

I dreamt I had a friend, on whom I lean'd 
With blindest trust, and a betrothed maid 
Whom I was wont to call not mine, but me, 
For mine own self seem'd nothing, lacking her ! 
This maid so idolized, that trusted friend, 
Polluted in my absencef soul and body ! 
And she with him and he with her conspired 
To have me murder'd in a wood of the mountains : X 

* For the above speech the three following are substituted 
in the published Remorse : — 

Ter. Dreams tell but of the past, and yet, 'tis said, 
They prophesy — 

Alv. The Past lives o'er again 

In its effects, and to the guilty spirit, 
The ever frowning Present is its image. 
Ter. Traitress ! {then aside) 

What sudden spell o'ermasters me ? 
Why seeks he me, shunning the Moorish woman. 

[Teresa looks round uneasily, hut gradually hecomes 
attentive as Alvar proceeds in the next speech. 

f Dishonour' d in my absence. — Remorse. 

X For the above two lines the two following were substi- 
tuted in Remorse : — 

Fear, following guilt, tempted to blacker guilt, 
And murderers were suborn'd against my life. 



A TRAGEDY. 27 

But by my looks and most impassion'd words 
I roused tlie virtues, that are dead in no man, 
Even in the assassins' hearts. They made their 

terms, 
And thank' d me for redeeming them from murder. 

ALHADRA [to MARIA.]. 

You are lost in thought. Hear him no more, 
sweet lady ! 

MARIA. 

From morn to night I am myself a dreamer, 
And slight things bring on me the idle mood. 
Well, sir, what happen'd then ? 

ALBERT. 

On a rude rock, 
A rock, methought, fast by a grove of firs 
Whose threaddy leaves to the low breathing gale 
Made a soft sound most like the distant ocean, 
I stay'd as tho' the hour of death were past, 
And I were sitting in the world of spirits, 
For all things seem'd unreal ! There I sate. 
The dews fell clammy, and the night descended, 
Black, sultry, close ! and ere the midnight hour 
A storm came on, mingling all sounds of fear 



28 



OSORIO 



That woods and sky and mountains seem'd one 

havock ! 
The second flash of lightning show'd-ft-4ree 
Hard by me, newly-scathed. I rose tumultuous : 
My soul work'd high : I bared my head to the 

storm, 
And with loud voice and clamorous agony 
Kneeling I pray'd to the great Spirit that 

made me, 
Pray'd that Eemorse might fasten on their hearts, 
And cling, with poisonous tooth, inextricable 
As the gored lion's bite ! 

MARIA. 

A fearful curse ! 

ALHADRA. 

But dreamt you not that you return'd and kill'd 

him?* 
Dreamt you of no revenge ? 

albert [his voice trembling, and in tones of deep 



She would have died, 
Died in her sinsf — perchance, by her own hands ! 

* and kill'd them. — Remorse. 
f Died in her guilt. — lb. 



A TRAGEDY. 29 

Arid bending o'er her self-inflicted wounds 
I might have met the evil glance of frenzy 
And leapt myself into an unblest grave ! 
I pray'd for the punishment that cleanses hearts, 
For still I loved her ! 

ALHADRA. 

And you dreamt all this ? 

MARIA. 

My soul is full of visions, all is wild !* 

ALHADRA. 

There is no room in this heart for puling love-tales. 
Lady ! your servants there seem seeking us.f 

maria [lifts wp her veil and advances to albert]. 

Stranger, farewell ! I guess not who you are, 
Nor why you so address'd your tale to me. 
Tour mien is noble, and, I own, perplex'd me 
With obscure memory of something past, 
Which still escaped my efforts, or presented 
Tricks of a fancy pamper'd with long- wishing. 

* All as wild. — Remorse. (The reading in the text may 
possibly be an error of the transcriber.) 
f This line is omitted in Remorse. 



30 OSORIO : 

If (as it sometimes happens) our rude startling, 
While your full heart was shaping out its dream, 
Drove you to this, your not ungentle wildness,* 
You have my sympathy, and so farewell ! 
But if some undiscover'd wrongs oppress you, 
And you need strength to drag them into light, 
The generous Yelez, and my Lord Osorio 
Have arm and will to aid a noble sufferer, 
Nor shall you want my favourable pleading. 

[Exeunt Maria and Alhadra. 

albert [alone], 

'Tis strange ! it cannot be ! my Lord Osorio ! 
Her Lord Osorio ! Nay, I will not do it. 
I cursed him once, and one curse is enough. 
How sad she look'd and pale ! but not like guilt, 
And her calm tones — sweet as a song of mercy ! 
If the bad spirit retain'd his angel's voice, 
Hell scarce were hell. And why not innocent ? 
Who meant to murder me might well cheat her. 
But ere she married him, he had stain'd her 

honour. 
Ah ! there I am hamper' d. What if this were 

a lie 

* your not ungentle kindness, — Remorse. 






A TRAGEDY. 31 

Framed by the assassin ? who should tell it him 
If it were truth ? Osorio would not tell him. 
Yet why one lie ? All else, I know, was truth. 
No start ! no jealousy of stirring conscience ! 
And she referr'd to me — fondly, niethought ! 
Could she walk here, if that she were a traitress ?* 
Here where we play'd together in our childhood ? 
Here where we plighted vows ? Where her cold 

cheek 
Beceived my last kiss, when with suppress' d 

feelings 
She had fainted in my arms ? It cannot be ! 
"lis not in nature i I will die, believing 
That I shall meet her where no evil is, 
No treachery, no cup dash'd from the lips ! 
I'll haunt this scene no more — live she in peace ! 
Her husband — ay, her husband ! May this 

Angel 
New-mould his canker'd heart ! Assist me, 

Heaven ! 
That I may pray for my poor guilty brother ! 

End of Act the Fiest. 



If she had been a traitress ? — Remorse. 



ACT THE SECOND. 

Scene the Fibst — A wild and mountainous 
country. Osorio and Ferdinand are discovered 
at a little distance from a house* which stands 
under the brow of a slate rock, the rock covered with 
vines. 

Ferdinand and Osorio. 

FERDINAND. 

Thrice you have saved my life. Once in the 

battle 
You gave it me, next rescued me from suicide, 
When for my follies I was made to wander 
With mouths to feed, and not a morsel for them. 

* In the published Remorse the remainder of this stage 
direction is omitted, and the Scene opens thus : — 

Ord. Here we may stop : your house distinct in view, 
Yet we secured from listeners. 

Isid. Now indeed 

My house ! and it looks cheerful as the clusters 
Basking in sunshine on yon vine-clad rock 
That overbrows it ! Patron ! Friend ! Preserver ! 
Thrice have you saved my life, &c. 

D 



34 osoeio : 

Now, but for you, a dungeon's slimy stones 
Had pillow'd my snapt joints.* 

OSOEIO. 

Good Ferdinand ! 
Why this to me ? It is enough you know it. 

FERDINAND. 

A common trick of gratitude, my lord ! 
Seeking to ease her own full heart. 

OSOEIO. 

Enough. 
A debt repaid ceases to be a debt. 
You have it in your power to serve me greatly. 

FERDINAN*D. 

As how,f my lord? I pray you name the thing ! 
I would climb up an ice- glazed precipice 
To pluck a weed you fancied. 

osoeio [with embarrassment and hesitation]. 
Why— that— lady— 

FERDINAND. 

'Tis now three years, my lord ! since last I 

saw you. 
Have you a son, my lord ? 

* Had been my bed and pillow. — Remorse. 
f And how, — lb. 



A TRAGEDY. 35 

OSORIO. 

miserable ! 

[Aside. 
Ferdinand ! you are a man, and know this world.* 
I told you what I wish'd — now for the truth ! 
She loved the man you kill'd ! 

Ferdinand [looking as suddenly alarmed]. 
You jest, my lord ? 

OSORIO. 

And till his death is proved, she will not wed me. 

FERDINAND. 

You sport with me, my lord ? 

OSORIO. 

Come, come, this foolery 
Lives only in thy looks — thy heart disowns it. 

FERDINAND. 

I can bear this, and anything more grievous 
From you, my lord ! — but how can I serve you 
here? 

OSORIO. 

Why, you can mouth set speeches solemnly,! 

* and know mankind. — Remorse. 

f Why you can utter with a solemn gesture 
Oracular sentences of deep no-meaning,— lb. 



36 osorio : 

Wear a quaint garment, make mysterious 
antics. 

FERDINAND. 

I am dull, my lord ! I do not comprehend you. 

OSOEIO. 

In blunt terms you can play the sorcerer. 
She has no faith in Holy Church, 'tis true. 
Her lover school' d her in some newer nonsense : 
Yet still a tale of spirits works on her. 
She is a lone enthusiast, sensitive, 
Shivers, and cannot keep the tears in her eye. 
Such ones do love the marvellous too well 
Not to believe it. We will wind her up* 
With a strange music, that she knows not of. 
With fumes of frankincense, and mummery — 
Then leave, as one sure token of his death, 
That portrait, which from off the dead man's 

neck 
I bade thee take, the trophy of thy conquest.f 

* And such do love the marvellous too well 

Not to believe it. We will wind up her fancy — Remorse. 
f In the published Remorse the two following speeches are 
here added : — 

Isid. Will that be a sure sign ? 

Ord. Beyond suspicion. 



A TRAGEDY. 37 

feedinand [with hesitation]. 

Just now I should have cursed the man who told me 
You could ask aught, my lord ! and I refuse. 
But this I cannot do. 

OSORIO. 

Where lies your scruple ? 

FERDINAND. 

That shark Francesco. 

OSORIO. 

O ! an o'ersized gudgeon ! 
I baited, sir, my hook with a painted mitre, 
And now I play with him at the end of the line. 
Well— and what next ?* 

Fondly caressing him, her favoured lover, 
(By some hase spell he had bewitch'd her senses) 
She whispered such dark fears of me forsooth, 
As made this heart pour gall into my veins. 
And as she coyly hound it round his neck, 
She made him promise silence ; and now holds 
The secret of the existence of this portrait 
Known only to her lover and herself. 
But I had traced her, stoln unnoticed on them, 
And unsuspected saw and heard the whole. 

* The two preceding speeches are omitted in Remorse ; an 
Isidore (Ferdinand) replies : — 

Why — why, my lord, 
You know"you told me, &c. 



38 osorio : 

Ferdinand [stammering'] . 

Next, next — my lord ! 
You know, yon told me that the lady loved yon, 
Had loved you with incautious tenderness. 
That if the young man, her betrothed husband, 
Return' d, yourself, and she, and an unborn 

babe, 
Must perish. Now, my lord ! to be a man !* 

osorio [aloud, though to express his contempt he 

speaks in the third person] . 

This fellow is a man ! He kill'd for hire 

One whom he knew not — yet has tender 

scruples. 

[Then turning to Ferdinand. 

Thy hums and ha's, thy whine and stammering. 

Pish — fool! thou blunder' st through the devil's 

book,f 

Spelling thy villainy ! 

* That if the young man, her hetrothed husband, 
Return' d, yourself, and she, and the honour of both, 
Must perish. Now, though with no tenderer scruples 
Than those which being native to the heart — 
Than those, my lord, which merely being a man. 

— Remorse. 

f These doubts, these fears, thy whine, thy stammering — ■ 
Pish, fool ! thou blunder'st through the book of guilt. — lb. 



A TRAGEDY. 39 



FERDINAND. 



My lord — my lord ! 
I can bear much, yes, very much from you. 
But there's a point where sufferance is meanness ! 
I am no villain, never kill'd for hire. 
My gratitude 

OSORIO. 

! ay, your gratitude ! 
'Twas a well- sounding word — what have you done 
with it? 

FERDINAND. 

Who proffers his past favours for my virtue* 
Tries to o'erreach me, is a very sharper, 
And should not speak of gratitude, my lord ! 
I knew not 'twas your brother ! 

osorio [evidently alarmed]. 

And who told you ? 

FERDINAND. 

He himself told me. 

* In the published Remorse Osorio (Ordonio) here 
interposes : — 

Ord. {with bitter scorn.) Virtue 



40 



OSORIO : 



OSORIO. 

Ha ! you talk'd with hini ? 
And those, the two Morescoes, that went with 
you ? # 

FERDINAND. 

Both fell in a night-brawl at Malaga. 
osoeio [in a low voice]. 
My brother ! 

FERDINAND. 

Yes, my lord ! I could not tell you : 
I thrust away the thought, it drove me wild. 
But listen to me now. I pray you, listen ! 

OSORIO. 

Villain ! no more ! I'll hear no more of it. 

FERDINAND. 

M y lord ! it much imports your future safety 
T hat you should hear it. 

osorio [turning off from Ferdinand]. 

Am I not a man ? 
'Tis as it should be ! Tut — the deed itself 
Was idle — and these after-pangs still idler ! 

* And these, the two Morescoes who were with you ? — 

Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 41 



FERDINAND. 



We met him in the very place you mention' d, 
Hard by a grove of firs. 

OSORIO. 

Enough ! enough ! 

FERDINAND. 

He fought us valiantly, and wounded all ; 
In fine, compell'd a parley ! 

osorio [sighing as if lost in thought] . 
Albert ! Brother ! 

FERDINAND. 

He offer' d me his purse. 

OSORIO. 

Yes? 

FERDINAND. 

Yes ! I spurn' d it. 
He promised us I know not what — in vain ! 
Then with a look and voice which overawed me, 
He said — What mean you, friends ? My life is 

dear. 
I have a brother and a promised wife 



42 



OSORIO 



Who make life dear to me, and if I fall 

That brother will roam earth and hell for 

vengeance. 
There was a likeness in his face to yours. 
I ask'd his brother's name ; he said, Osorio, 
Son of Lord Yelez ! I had well-nigh fainted ! 
At length I said (if that indeed I said it, 
And that no spirit made my tongne his organ), 
That woman is now pregnant* by that brother, 
And he the man who sent us to destroy you. 
He drove a thrust at me in rage. I told him, 
He wore her portrait round his neck — he look'd 
As he had been made of the rock that propp'd 

him back ;f 
Ay, just as you look now — only less ghastly ! 
At last recovering from his trance, he threw 
His sword away, and bade us take his life — 
It was not worth his keeping. 

osoxtio. 

And you kill'd him ? 
blood-hounds ! may eternal wrath flame round 
you! 

* That woman is dishonoured. — Remorse. 
f that propt his back. — lb. 



A TRAGEDY. 43 

He was the image of the Deity. 

[A pause. 

It seizes me — by hell ! I will go on ! 
What ? would' st thou stop, man ? thy pale looks 
won't save thee ! 

[Then suddenly pressing Ms forehead. 
Oh ! cold, cold, cold — shot thro' with icy cold ! 

FERDINAND [aside~]. 

Were he alive, he had return' d ere now. 

The consequence the same, dead thro' his plotting ! 

OSORIO. 

O this unutterable dying away here, 

This sickness of the heart ! 

[A pause. 

What if I went 
And lived in a hollow tomb, and fed on weeds ? 
Ay ! that's the road to heaven ! fool ! fool ! 

fool! 

[A pause. 

What have I done but that which nature destined 

Or the blind elements stirr'd up within me ? 

If good were meant, why were we made these 

beings ? 
And if not meant 



44 osorio : 

ferdinand. 
How feel you now, my lord ? # 
[Osorio starts, looks at him wildly, then, after a 
pause, during which his features are forced into a 

smile~] . 

OSORIO. 

A gust of the soul ! i'faith, it overset me. 

O 'twas all folly — all ! idle as laughter ! 

Now, Ferdinand, I swear that thou shalt aid me. 

Ferdinand [in a low voice~] . 

I'll perish first !f Shame on my coward heart, 
That I must slink away from wickedness 
Like a cow'd dog ! 

OSORIO. 

What dost thou mutter of ? 

FERDINAND. 

Some of your servants know me, I am certain. 

OSORIO. 

There's some sense in that scruple; but we'll 
mask you. 

* You are disturb'd, my lord ! — Remorse. 

f The remainder of this speech is omitted in Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 45 

FERDINAND. 

They'll know my gait. But stay ! of late I have 

watch' d 
A stranger that lives nigh, still picking weeds, 
Now in the swamp, now on the walls of the ruin, 
Now clambering, like a runaway lunatic, 
Up to the summit of our highest mount. 
I have watch'd him at it morning-tide and noon, 
Once in the moonlight. Then I stood so near, 
I heard him muttering* o'er the plant. A 

wizard ! 
Some gaunt slave, prowling out for dark employ- 
ments. 

OSORIO. 

What may his name be ?f 

* Last night I watch'd 
A stranger near the ruin in the wood, 
Who as it seein'd was gathering herbs and wild flowers. 
I had follow'd him at distance, seen him scale 
Its western wall, and by an easier entrance 
Stoln after him unnoticed. There I mark'd 
That mid the chequer work of light and shade, 
With curious choice he pluck'd no other flowers 
But those on which the moonlight fell : and once 
I heard him muttering, Sfc. — Remorse. 

f Ord. Doubtless you question'd him ? — lb. 



46 osorio : 

ferdinand. 

That I cannot tell you. 
Only Francesco bade an officer 
Speak in your name, as lord of this domain. 
So he was question' d, who and what he was. 
This was his answer : Say to the Lord Osorio,* 
" He that can bring the dead to life again." 

OSORIO. 

A strange reply ! 

FERDINAND. 

Ay — all of him is strange. 
He call'd himself a Christian — yet he wears 
The Moorish robe, as if he courted death. 

OSORIO. 

Where does this wizard live ? 

* Isid. 'Twas my intention, 

Having first traced him homeward to his hannt. 
But lo ! the stern Dominican, whose spies 
Lurk every where, already (as it seem'd) 
Had given commission to his apt familiar 
To seek and sound the Moor ; who now returning, 
Was "by this trusty agent stopp'd midway. 
I, dreading fresh suspicion if found near him 
In that lone place, again conceal'd myself: 
Yet within hearing. So the Moor was question'd 
And in your name, as lord of this domain. 
Proudly he answer'd, Say to the Lord Ordonio, &c. — Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 47 

Ferdinand [pointing to a distance]. 

You see that brooklet ? 
Trace its course backwards, thro' a narrow 

opening 
It leads you to the place. 

OSORIO. 

How shall I know it ? 

FERDINAND. 

You can't mistake. It is a small green dale* 
Built all around with high off-sloping hills, 
And from its shape our peasants aptly call it 
The Giant's Cradle. There's a lake in the midst, 
And round its banks tall wood, that branches 

over 
And makes a kind of faery forest grow 
Down in the water. At the further end 
A puny cataract falls on the lake ; 
And there (a curious sight) you see its shadow 
For ever curling, like a wreath of smoke, 
Up through the foliage of those faery trees. 
His cot stands opposite — you cannot miss it. 
Some three yards up the hill a mountain ash 

* You cannot err. It is a small green dell. — Remorse. 



48 osorio : 

Stretches its lower boughs and scarlet clusters 
O'er the new thatch.* 

OSORIO. 

I shall not fail to find it. 
[Exit Osorio. Ferdinand goes into his house. 

Scene changes. 

The inside of a cottage, around ivhich flowers and 
plants of various kinds are seen. 

Albert and Maurice. 

albert. 

He doth believe himself an iron soul, 
And therefore puts he on an iron outward ; 
And those same mock habiliments of strength 
Hide his own weakness from himself. 

MAURICE. 

His weakness ! 
Come, come, speak out ! Tour brother is a 
villain ! 

* O'er the old thatch. — Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 4^ 

Yet all the wealth, power, influence, which is yours 
You suffer him to hold ! 

ALBERT. 

Maurice ! dear Maurice ! 
That my return involved Osorio's death* 

* Up to the point indicated this scene is entirely different 
in the printed Remorse. As will be seen, Alhadra is intro- 
duced, and Zulimez replaces Maurice, who is only alluded to. 

The inside of a Cottage, around which flowers and plants of 
various Icinds are seen. Discovers ALVAR, Zulimez, and 
Alhadra, as on the point of leaving. 

Alhad. {addressing Alvar.) 
Farewell then ! and though many thoughts perplex me, 
Aught evil or ignoble never can I 
Suspect of thee ! If what thou seem'st thou art, 
The oppressed brethren of thy blood have need 
Of such a leader. 

Alv. Nobly-minded woman ! 

Long time against oppression have I fought, 
And for the native liberty of faith, 
Have bled and suffered bonds. Of this be certain, 
Time, as he courses onwards, still unrolls 
The volume of Concealment. In the Future, 
As in the optician's glassy cylinder, 
The indistinguishable blots and colours 
Of the dim Past collect and shape themselves, 
Upstarting in their own completed image, 

To scare or to reward. 

I sought the guilty, 



50 OSORIO : 

I trust would give me an unmingled pang- 
Yet bearable. But when I see my father 
Strewing his scant grey hairs even on the 

ground 
Which soon must be his grave ; and my Maria, 
Her husband proved a monster,* and her 

infants 
His infants — poor Maria ! — all would perish, 
All perish — all ! — and I (nay bear with me !) 
Could not survive the complicated ruin ! 



And what I sought I found : but ere the spear 

Flew from my hand, there rose an angel form 

Betwixt me and my aim. With baffled purpose 

To the Avenger I leave Vengeance, and depart ! 

Whate'er betide, if aught my arm may aid, 

Or power protect, my word is pledged to thee : 

For many are thy wrongs, and thy soul noble. 

Once more farewell. [Exit Alhadea. 

Yes, to the Belgic states 
We will return. These robes, this stain'd complexion, 
Akin to falsehood, weigh upon my spirit. 
Whate'er befall us, the heroic Maurice 
Will grant us an asylum, in remembrance 
Of our past services. 

Zul. And all the wealth, power, influence which is yours 
You let a murderer hold ? 

Alv. O faithful Zulimez ! 

That my return involved Ordonio's death, tyc. 

* proved a murderer. — Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 51 

maurice [much affected]. 
Nay, now, if I have distress'd you — you well know, 
I ne'er will quit your fortunes ! true, 'tis tiresome. 
You are a painter — one of many fancies — 
You can call up past deeds, and make them live 
On the blank canvas, and each little herb, 
That grows on mountain bleak, or tangled forest, 
You've learnt to name — but I 

ALBERT. 

Well, to the Netherlands 
We will return, the heroic Prince of Orange 
Will grant us an asylum, in remembrance 
Of our past service. 

MAURICE. 

Heard you not some steps ?* 

ALBERT. 

What if it were my brother coming onward ! 
Not very wisely (but his creature teased me)f 
I sent a most mysterious message to him. 

* The preceding speech of Albert is omitted in Remorse, 
and the former speaker continues : — 

You have learnt to name 

Hark ! heard you not some footsteps ? 

f This line is omitted in Remorse. 



52 



OSORIO 



MAURICE, 

Would he not know you ? 

ALBERT. 

I unfearingly 
Trust this disguise. Besides, he thinks me dead ; 
And what the mind believes impossible, 
The bodily sense is slow to recognize. 
Add to my youth, when last we saw each other ; 
Manhood has swell' d my chest, and taught my 

voice 
A hoarser note. 

MAURICE. 

Most true ! And Alva's Duke 
Did not improve it by the unwholesome viands 
He gave so scantily in that foul dungeon, 
During our long imprisonment.* 

[Enter Osorio. 

ALBERT. 

It is he ! 

MAURICE. 

Make yourself talk ; you'll feel the less. Come, 

speak. 
How do you find yourself ? Speak to me, Albert. 

* The three preceding speeches are omitted in Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 53 

Albert [placing his hand on his heart]. 
A little fluttering here ; but more of sorrow !* 

OSORIO. 

You know my name, perhaps, better than me. 
I am Osorio, son of the Lord Velez. 

albert [groaning aloud]. 

The son of Velez ! 

[osorio walks leisurely round the room, and looks 
attentively at the plants.] 

MAURICE. 

Why, what ails you now ? 
[Albert grasps Maurice's hand in agitation. 

* The two preceding speeches are omitted in Remorse, and 
the following speech of Osorio (Ordonio) runs thus : — 

Ord. (to himself as he enters). 
If I distinguished right her gait, and stature, 
It was the Moorish woman, Isidore's wife, 
That pass'd me as I enter'd. A lit taper, 
In the night air, doth not more naturally 
Attract the night flies round it, than a conjuror 
Draws round him the whole female neighbourhood. 

(addressing Alvae. 
You know my name, I guess, if not my person. 
I am Ordonio, &c. 



54 osorio 



MAURICE. 



How your hand trembles, Albert ! Speak ! what 
wish yon ? 

ALBERT. 

To fall upon his neck and weep in anguish !* 

osorio [returning']. 

All very curious ! from a ruin'd abbey 

Pluck'd in the moonlight. There's a strange 

power in weedsf 
When a few odd prayers have been mutter'd o'er 

them. 
Then they work miracles ! I warrant you, 
There's not a leaf, but underneath it lurks J 
Some serviceable imp. There's one of you, 
Who sent me a strange message. 

ALBERT. 

I am he ! 

* and weep forgiveness !-— Remorse. 

f In the published Remorse this speech begins as follows : -*. 

Ord. (returning, and aloud). 
Pluck'd in the moonlight from a ruin'd abbey — 
Those only, which the pale rays visited ! 
O the unintelligible power of weeds, &c. 

X but underneath it works. — Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 55 

OSORIO. 

I will speak with you, and by yourself. 

[Exit Maurice.* 

OSORIO. 

" He that can bring the dead to life again." 
Such was your message, sir ! You are no dullard, 
But one that strips the outward rind of things ! 

ALBERT. 

'Tis fabled there are fruits with tempting rinds 
That are all dust and rottenness within. 
Would'st thou I should strip such ! 

OSORIO. 

Thou quibbling fool, 
What dost thou mean ? Think'st thou I journey'd 

hither 
To sport with thee ? 

ALBERT. 

No, no ! my lord ! to sport 
Best fits the gaiety of Innocence ! 

* In Remorse thus : — 

Ord. With you, then, I am to speak. 

\ILaughtily waving his hand to Zulimez. 

And mark you, alone. 

[Ewit Zulimez. 



I 



56 osorio : 

osoeio [draws hack as if stung and embarrassed, 
then folding Ms arms'], 

O what a thing is Man ! the wisest heart 

A fool — a fool, that laughs at its own folly, 

Yet still a fool ! 

[Looks round the cottage. 

It strikes me* you are poor ! 

ALBERT. 

What follows thence ? 

OSOEIO. 

That you would fain be richer. 
Besides, you do not love the rack, perhaps, 
Nor a black dungeon, nor a fire of faggots. 
The Inquisition — hey ? You understand me, 
And you are poor. Now I have wealth and 

power, f 
Can quench the flames, and cure your poverty. 

* It strikes me. These three words are omitted in 
Remorse. 

f The second and third lines of this speech are omitted in 
the printed Remorse, where it opens thus : — 

Ord. That you would fain be richer. 

The Inquisition, too. You comprehend me ? 
You are poor, in peril. I have wealth and power, &c. 



A TRAGEDY. 57 

And for this service, all I ask you is* 

That you should serve me — once — for a few hours. 

albekt [solemnly']. 

Thou art the son of Yelez ! Would to Heaven 
That I could truly and for ever serve thee ! 

OSORIO. 

The canting scoundrel softens. f 



You are my friend ! 
" He that can bring the dead to life again." 
Nay, no defence to me. The holy brethren 
Believe these calumnies. I know thee better. 

[Then with great hitterness. 
Thou art a man, and as a man I'll trust thee ! 

ALBERT. 

Alas, this hollow mirth ! Declare your business ! 

OSORIO. 

I love a lady, and she would love me 
But for an idle and fantastic scruple. 

* And for the boon I ask of you but this. — Remorse. 
f The slave begins to soften.— lb. 



58 osoeio : 

Have you no servants round the house?* no 

listeners ? 

[Osoeio steps to the door. 

ALBERT. 

What ! faithless too ? false to his angel wife ? 

To such a wife ? Well might' st thou look so wan, 

Ill-starr'd Maria ! Wretch ! my softer soul 

Is pass'd away ! and I will probe his conscience. 

osoeio [returned']. 
In truth this lady loved another man, 
But he has perish'd. 

ALBERT. 

What ? you kill'd him ? hey ? 

OSOEIO. 

I'll dash thee to the earth, if thou but think'st it, 
Thou slave ! thou galley-slave ! thou mountebank ! 
I leave thee to the hangman !f 

* Have you no servants here ? — Remorse. 
f Thus altered and transposed in Remorse : — 
Ord. I'll dash thee to the earth, if thou but think'st it ! 
Insolent slave ! how dared'st thou — 

(turns abruptly from Alvae, and then to himself. 
Why ! what's this ? 
'Twas idiotcy ! I'll tie myself to an aspen, 
And wear a fool's cap 



A TRAGEDY. 59 

ALBERT. 

Fare you well ! 
I pity you, Osorio ! even to anguish ! 

[Albert retires off the stage. 

osorio [recovering himself ~\. 

'Twas idiotcy ! I'll tie myself to an aspen, 
And wear a fool's cap. Ho ! 

[Calling after Albert. 

ALBERT 

Be brief, what wish you ? 

OSORIO. 

You are deep at bartering — you charge yourself 
At a round sum. Come, come, I spake unwisely. 

ALBERT. 

I listen to you. 

OSORIO. 

In a sudden tempest 
Did Albert perish — he, I mean, the lover — 
The fellow 

Alv. (watching his agitation.) Fare thee well — 
I pity thee, Ordonio, even to anguish. 

[ Alvae retires to the back of the stage. 

Ord. (having recovered himself.) 
Ho ! (calling to Alvae.) 



60 OSORIO : 

ALBERT. 

Nay, speak out, 'twill ease your heart 
To call him villain ! Why stand' st thou aghast ? 
Men think it natural to hate their rivals ! 

osorio [hesitating and half doubting whether he 
should proceed']. 

Now till she knows him dead she will not 
wed me ! 

albert [with eager vehemence']. 

Are you not wedded, then ? Merciful Grod !* 
Not wedded to Maria ? 

OSORIO. 

Why, what ails thee ? 
Art mad or drunk ? Why look'st thou upward 

BO?f 

Dost pray to Lucifer, prince of the air ? 

ALBERT. 

Proceed. I shall be silent. 

[Albert sits, and leaning on the table hides his face. 

* Merciful Heaven ! — Remorse. 

f What, art thou mad ? Why look'st thou upward so ? — lb . 



A TRAGEDY. 61 

OSORIO. 

To Maria ! 
Politic wizard ! ere you sent that message, 
You had conn'd your lesson, made yourself 

proficient 
In all my fortunes ! Hah ! you prophesied 
A golden crop ! — well, you have not mistaken — 
Be faithful to me, and I'll pay thee nobly. 

albert [lifting up his head]. 
Well — and this lady ! 

OSORIO. 

If we could make her certain of his death, 
She needs must wed me. Ere her lover left her 7 
She tied a little portrait round his neck 
Entreating him to wear it. 

albert [sighing']. 

Yes ! he did so ! 

OSORIO. 

Why, no ! he was afraid of accidents, 
Of robberies and shipwrecks, and the like. 
In'secrecy he gave it me to keep 
Till his return. 



04 OSORIO : 

ALBERT. 

What, lie was your friend then ? 

osorio [wounded and embarrassed]. 

I was Ids friend. 

[A pause. 
Now that he gave it me 
This lady knows not. You are a mighty wizard — 
Can call this dead man up — he will not come — 
He is in heaven then ! — there you have no 

influence — 
Still there are tokens ; and your imps may bring 

you 
Something he wore about him when he died. 
And when the smoke of the incense on the altar 
Is pass'd, your spirits will have left* this picture. 
What say you now ? 

albert [after a long pause] . 
Osorio, I will do it. 

OSORIO. 

Delays are dangerous. It shall be to-morrowf 
In the early evening. Ask for the Lord Velez. 

* Can have left. — Remorse. 

f We'll hazard no delay Be it to-night. — lb. 



A TRAGEDY. 63 

I will prepare him. Music, too, and incense, 
All shall be ready. Here is this same picture — 
And here what you will value more, a purse. 
Before the dusk * 

ALBERT. 

I will not fail to meet you. 

OSORIO. 

Till next we meet, farewell ! 

Albert [alone, gazes passionately at the portrait] , 

And I did curse thee ? 
At midnight ? on my knees ? And I believed 
Thee perjured, thee polluted, thee a murderess ? f 
O blind and credulous fool ! guilt of folly ! 
Should not thy inarticulate fondnesses, 
Thy infant loves — should not thy maiden vows, 

* Thus in Remorse: — 

Music, too, and incense, 
(For I have arranged it — Music, Altar, Incense) 
All shall be ready. Here is this same picture, 
And here, what you will value more, a purse. 
Come early for your magic ceremonies. 

f Thee perjured, thee a traitress! thee dishonour'd? — 
Remorse. 



64 osorio : 

Have come upon my heart? And this sweet 
image 

Tied round my neck with many a chaste endear- 
ment 

And thrilling hands, that made me weep and 
tremble. 

Ah, coward dupe ! to yield it to the miscreant 

Who spake pollutions* of thee ! 

I am unworthy of thy love, Maria ! 

Of that unearthly smile upon those lips, 

Which ever smiled on me ! Yet do not 
scorn me. 

I lisp'd thy name ere I had learnt my mother's ! 

[Enter Maurice. 

ALBERT. 

Maurice ! that picture, which I painted for thee, 
Of my assassination. 

MAURICE. 

Ill go fetch it. 

ALBERT. 

Haste ! for I yearn to tell thee what has pass'd. 

[Maurice goes out. 

* Pollution.— Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 65 

Albert [gazing at the portrait] .* 

Dear image ! rescued from a traitor's keeping, 
I will not now profane thee, holy image ! 
To a dark trick ! That worst bad man shall find 
A picture which shall wake the hell within him, 
And rouse a fiery whirlwind in his conscience ! 

* The ten preceding lines, from the entrance of Maurice, 
are omitted in Itemorse, and the speech of Albert (Alvar) 
continues uninterrupted. 



End op Act the Second. 



ACT THE THIRD. 

Scene the First. — A hall of armoury, with an altar 
in the part farthest from the stage. 

Velez, Osorio, Maria. 

* Maria. 

Lord Velez ! you have ask'd my presence here, 
And I submit ; but (Heaven bear witness for me !) 
My heart approves it not ! 'tis mockery !t 

[Here Albert enters in a sorcerer's robe. 

* See note on page 72. 

f The following passage is here inserted in the published 
Remorse : — 

Ord. Believe you then no preternatural influence ? 
Believe you not that spirits throng around us ? 

Ter. Say rather that I have imagined it 
A possible thing : and it has soothed my soul . 
As other fancies have ; but ne'er seduced me 
To traffic with the black and frenzied hope 
That the dead hear the voice of witch or wizard. 



68 osorio : 

MARIA [to ALBERT]. 

Stranger ! I mourn and blush to see you here 
On such employments ! With far other thoughts 
I left you. 

osorio [aside]. 

Ha ! he has been tampering with her ! 

ALBERT. 

high-soul'd maiden, and more dear to me 
Than suits the stranger's name, I swear to thee, 

1 will uncover all concealed things !* 
Doubt, but decide not ! 

Stand from off the altar. 
[Here a strain of music is heard from behind the 
scenes, from an instrument of glass or steel f — the 
harmonica or Celestina stojJ, or daggers metallic 
organ.] 

ALBERT. 

With no irreverent voice or uncouth charm 
I call up the departed soul of Albert ! 
Hear our soft suit, and heed my milder spells : 
So may the gates of Paradise unbarr'd 



* all concealed guilt. — Bemorse. 

f The remaining part of this stage direction is omitted in 



A TRAGEDY. 69 

Cease thy swift toils, since haply thou art one 

Of that innumerable company, 

Who in broad circle, lovelier than the rainbow, 

Girdle this round earth in a dizzy motion, 

With noise too vast and constant to be heard — 

Fitliest unheard ! For, O ye numberless 

And rapid travellers ! what ear unstunn'd, 

What sense unmadden'd, might bear up against 

The rushing of your congregated wings ? 

Even now your living wheel turns o'er my head ! 

Ye, as ye pass, toss high the desert sands, 

That roar and whiten, like a burst of waters, 

A sweet appearance, but a dread illusion, 

To the parch'd caravan that roams by night. 

And ye build up on the becalmed waves 

That whirling pillar, which from earth to heaven 

Stands vast, and moves in blackness. Te too split 

The ice-mount, and with fragments many and 

huge, 
Tempest the new-thaw'd sea, whose sudden gulfs 
Suck in, perchance, some Lapland wizard's skiff. 
Then round and round the whirlpool's marge ye 

dance, 
Till from the blue-swoln corse the soul toils out, 
And joins your mighty army. 

Soul of Albert ! 



70 OSORIO : 

Hear the mild spell and tempt no blacker charm. 

By sighs unquiet and the sickly pang 

Of an half dead yet still undying hope, 

Pass visible before our mortal sense ; 

So shall the Church's cleansing rites be thine, 

Her knells and masses that redeem the dead. 

The Song. [Sung behind the scenes, accompanied 
by the same instrument as before.'] 

Hear, sweet spirit ! hear the spell 

Lest a blacker charm compel ! 

So shall the midnight breezes swell 

With thy deep long-lingering knell. 

And at evening evermore 

In a chapel on the shore 

Shall the chanters sad and saintly, 

Yellow tapers burning faintly, 

Doleful masses chant for thee, 

Miserere, Domine ! 

Hark ! the cadence dies away 

On the quiet moonlight sea, # 

The boatmen rest their oars, and say, 

Miserere, Domine ! 

[A long pause. 

* On the yellow moonlight sea. — Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 71 

0S0RI0. 

This was too melancholy, father ! 

VELEZ. 

Nay! 
My Albert loved sad music from a child. 
Once he was lost ; and after weary search 
We found him in an open place of the wood, 
To which spot he had follow' d a blind boy 
Who breathed into a pipe of sycamore 
Some strangely-moving notes, and these, he said, 
Were taught him in a dream ; him we first saw 
Stretch' d on the broad top of a sunny heath- 
bank; 
And, lower down, poor Albert fast asleep, 
His head upon the blind boy's dog — it pleased me 
To mark, how he had fasten'd round the pipe 
A silver toy, his grandmother had given him. 
Methinks I see him now, as he then look'd. 
His infant dress was grown too short for him, 
Yet still he wore it.* 

* Thus in Remorse : — 

A silver toy his grandam had late given him. 
Methinks I see him now as he then look'd — 
Kven so ! — He had outgrown his infant dress, 
Yet still he wore it. 



72 osorio ; 



ALBERT 

My tears must not flow— 
I must not clasp his knees, and cry, my father !* 

OSORIO. 

The innocent obey nor charm nor spell. 

My brother is in heaven. Thou sainted spirit 

Burst on our sight, a passing visitant ! 

Once more to hear thy voice, once more to see 

thee, 
O 'twere a joy to me. 

albert [abruptly']. 

A joy to thee ! 
What if thou heard'st him now? What if his 

spirit 
Re-enter'd its cold corse, and came upon thee, 
With many a stab from many a murderer's 

poniard ? 
What if, his steadfast eye still beaming pity 
And brother's love, he turn'd his head aside, 

* The three preceding speeches stand at the opening of the 
Third Act in the published Remorse, with the following stage 
direction : — 

" Valdez, Oedonio, and Alyae in a sorcerer's role, are 
discovered" 



A TRAGEDY. 73 

Lest he should look at thee, and with one look 
Hurl thee beyond all power of penitence ? 

VELEZ. 

These are unholy fancies ! 

osorio [struggling with his feelings]. 
Yes, my father ! 
He is in heaven ! 

ALBERT [still to OSORIO]. 

But what if this same brother 
Had lived even so,* that at his dying hour 
The name of heaven would have convulsed his 

face 
More than the death-pang ? 

MARIA. 

Idly-prating man ! 
He was most virtuous, t 

* But what if he had a brother, 

Who had lived even so, &c. — Remorse. 

f In the published Remorse this speech is assigned to 
Valdez (Velez), but in the following amplified form : — 

Vol. Idly prating man ! 

Thou hast guess'd ill ; Don Alvar's only brother 
Stands here before thee — a father's blessing on him ! 
He is most virtuous. 



74 OSORIO : 

ALBERT [still to OSOEIO]. 

What if his very virtues 
Had pamper' d his sworn heart, and made him 

proud ? 
And what if pride had duped him into guilt, 
Yet still he stalk'd, a self-created G-od, 
Not very bold, but excellently cunning ;* 
And one that at his mother's looking-glass, 
Would force his features to a frowning sternness ? 
Young lord ! I tell thee, that there are such 

beings, — 
Yea, and it gives fierce merriment to the damn'd, 
To see these most proud men, that loathe mankind, 
At every stir and buzz of coward conscience, 
Trick, cant, and lie, most whining hypocrites ! 
Away ! away ! Now let me hear more music. f 

[Music as before. 

* exquisitely cunning. — Remorse. 

f The following passage is here added in the published 
Remorse : — 

[Music again]. 

Ter. 'Tis strange, I tremble at nry own conjectures! 
But whatsoe'er it mean, I dare no longer 
Be present at these lawless mysteries, 
This dark provoking of the hidden Powers ! 
Already I affront— if not high Heaven — 
Yet Alvar's memory ! — Hark ! I make appeal 



A TRAGEDY. 75 

ALBERT. 

The spell is mutter' d — come, thou wandering* 

shape, 
Who own'st no master in an eye of flesh, 
Whate'er be this man's doom, fair be it or foul, 
If he be dead, come quick, and bring with thee 
That which he grasp'd in death; and if he- 
lives, 
Some token of his obscure perilous life. 

[The whole orchestra crashes into one chorus* 

Wandering demon ! hear the spell 
Lest a blacker charm compel ! 

[A thunder-clap. The incense on the altar takes 
fire suddenly.'] f 

Against th' unholy rite, and hasten hence 

To kneel before a lawful shrine, and seek 

That voice which whispers, when the still heart listens, 

Comfort and faithful hope ! Let us retire. 

Alv. (To Teresa anxiously.) 
O full of faith and guileless love, thy spirit 
Still prompts thee wisely. Let the pangs of guilt 
Surprise the guilty : thou art innocent ! 

[Exeunt Teres A and Attendant. 

* The whole music clashes into a Chorus. — Remorse. 

f The rest of this Act is entirely different in the published 
Remorse. [See Appendix.^ 



76 



OSORIO 



MARIA. 

This is some trick — I know, it is a trick. 

Yet my weak fancy, and these bodily creepings, 

Would fain give substance to the shadow. 

velez [advancing to the altar']. 

Hah! 
A picture ! 

MARIA. 

God ! my picture ? 

albekt [gazing at Maria with wild impatient 



Pale — pale — deadly pale ! 

MARIA. 

He grasp'd it when he died. 

[She swoons. Albert rushes to her and supports 
her.] 

ALBERT. 

My love ! my wife ! 
Pale — pale, and cold ! My love ! my wife ! Maria ! 
[Velez is at the altar. Osorio remains near 
him in a state of stupor.] 

osorio [rousing himself]. 
Where am I ? 'Twas a lazy chilliness. 



A TRAGEDY. 77 

velez [takes and conceals the picture in his robe'] , 

This way, my son ! She must not see this 

picture. 
Go, call the attendants ! Life will soon ebb back ! 
[Velez and Osorio leave the stage. 

ALBERT. 

Her pulse doth nutter. Maria ! my Maria ! 
maeia [recovering — looks round']. 

I heard a voice — but often in my dreams, 

I hear that voice, and wake ; and try, and try, 

To hear it waking — but I never could ! 

And 'tis so now — even so ! Well, he is dead, 

Murder' d perhaps ! and I am faint, and feel 

As if it were no painful thing to die ! 

albert [eagerly]. 

Believe it not, sweet maid ! believe it not, 
Beloved woman ! 'Twas a low imposture 
Framed by a guilty wretch. 

MARIA. 

Ha ! who art thou ? 

albert [exceedingly agitated]. 
My heart bursts over thee ! 



78 osorio : 

MARIA. 

Didst thou murder him ? 
And dost thou now repent ? Poor troubled man ! 
I do forgive thee, and may Heaven forgive thee ! 

albert [aside]. 
Let me be gone. 

MARIA. 

If thou didst murder him, 
His spirit ever, at the throne of God, 
Asks mercy for thee, prays for mercy for thee, 
With tears in heaven ! 

ALBERT. 

Albert was not murder' d. 
Your foster-mother 

MARIA. 

And doth she know aught ? 

ALBERT. 

She knows not aught — but haste thou to her 

cottage 
To-morrow early — bring Lord Velez with thee. 
There ye must meet me — but your servants come. 



A TRAGEDY. 79 

maeia [wildly']. 

Nay — nay — but tell me ! 

[A pause — then presses her forehead, 
Ah! 'tis lost again ! 
This dead confused pain ! 

[A pause — she gazes at Albert. 
Mysterious man ! 
Methinks, I cannot fear thee — for thine eye 
Doth swim with pity — I will lean on thee. 

[Exeunt Albert and Maria. 

He-enter Velez and Osorio. 
velez [sportively] . 
You shall not see the picture, till you own it. 

OSORIO. 

This mirth and raillery, sir ! beseem your age. 
I am content to be more serious.* 

velez. 

Do you think I did not scent it from the first ? 
An excellent scheme, and excellently managed. 

* The transcriber had here written " superstitious," which 
is marked through with ink, and the word in the text substi- 
tuted, in an entirely different hand, apparently that of 
Coleridge himself. 



80 OSORIO : 

Twill blow away her doubts, and now she'll wed 

you. 
I'faith, the likeness is most admirable. 
I saw the trick — yet these old eyes grew dimmer 
With very foolish tears, it look'd so like him ! 

OSORIO. 

Where should I get her portrait ? 

VELEZ. 

Get her portrait ? 
Portrait? You mean the picture! At the 

painter's — 
No difficulty then — but that you lit upon 
A fellow that could play the sorcerer, 
With such a grace and terrible majesty, 
It was most rare good fortune. And how deeply 
He seem'd to suffer when Maria swoon' d, 
And half made love to her! I suppose you'll 

ask me 
Why did he so? 

osoeio [with deep tones of suppressed agitation] . 
Ay, wherefore did he so ? 

VELEZ. 

Because you bade him — and an excellent thought ! 



A TRAGEDY. 81 

A mighty man, and gentle as he is mighty. 
He'll wind into her confidence, and rout 
A host of scruples — come, confess, Osorio ! 

OSORIO. 

You pierce through mysteries with a lynx's eye, 
In this, your merry mood ! You see it all ! 

VELEZ. 

Why, no ! — not all. I have not yet discover' d, 
At least, not wholly, what his speeches meant. 
Pride and hypocrisy, and guilt and cunning — 
Then when he fix'd his obstinate eye on you, 
And you pretended to look strange and tremble. 
Why — wnv — what ails you now ? 

osorio [with a stupid stare]. 

Me ? why ? what ails me ? 
A pricking of the blood — it might have happen'd 
At any other time. Why scan you me ? 

velez [clapping Mm on the shoulder']. 

'Twon't do — 'twon't do — I have lived too long in 

the world. 
His speech about the corse and stabs and 

murderers, 



82 osorio : 

Had reference to the assassins in the picture : 
That I made out. 

osorio [with a frantic eagerness']. 

Assassins ! what assassins ? 

VELEZ. 

Well acted, on my life ! Your curiosity 
Euns open-mouth' d, ravenous as winter wolf. 
I dare not stand in its way. 

[He shows Osorio the picture. 

OSORIO. 

Duped — duped — duped ! 
That villain Ferdinand ! [aside.'] 

VELEZ. 

Duped — duped — not I. 
As he swept by me 

OSORIO. 

Ha ! what did he say ? 

VELEZ. 

He caught his garment up and hid his face. 

It seem'd as he were struggling to suppress 



A TRAGEDY. 83 

OSOEIO. 

A laugh ! a laugh ! hell ! he laughs at me ! 

VELEZ. 

It heaved his chest more like a violent sob. 

OSORIO. 

A choking laugh ! 

[A pause — then very wildly. 

I tell thee, my dear father ! 

I am most glad of this ! 

VELEZ. 

Grlad ! — ay — to be sure. 

OSOEIO. 

I was benumb'd, and stagger' d up and down 
Thro' darkness without light — dark — dark — 

dark — 
And every inch of this my flesh did feel 
As if a cold toad touch'd it ! Now 'tis sunshine, 
And the blood dances freely thro' its channels ! 

[He turns off — then (to himself) mimicking 
Ferdinand' s manner, .] 
" A common trick of gratitude, my lord ! 
Old gratitude ! a dagger would dissect 
His own full heart," 'twere good to see its colour ! 



84 osoeio : 

velez [looking intently at the picture]. 

Calm, yet commanding ! how he bares his breast, 

Yet still they stand with dim uncertain looks, 

As penitence had run before their crime. 

A crime too black for aught to follow it 

Save blasphemous despair ! See this man's face — 

With what a difficult toil he drags his soul 

To do the deed. 

[Then to Osorio. 

O this was delicate flattery 

To poor Maria, and I love thee for it ! 

osorio [in a slow voice with a reasoning laugh]. 

Love — love — and then we hate — and what ? and 

wherefore ? 
Hatred and love. Strange things ! both strange 

alike ! 
What if one reptile sting another reptile, 
Where is the crime ? The goodly face of Nature 
Hath one trail less of slimy filth upon it. 
Are we not all predestined rottenness 
And cold dishonour ? Grant it that this hand 
Had given a morsel to the hungry worms 
Somewhat too early. Where's the guilt of this ? 
That this must needs bring on the idiotcy 
Of moist-eyed penitence — 'tis like a dream ! 



A TRAGEDY. 85 

VELEZ. 

Wild talk, my child ! but thy excess of feeling 

[Turns off from Osomo. 
Sometimes, I fear, it will unhinge his brain ! 

OSOEIO. 

I kill a man and lay him in the sun, 
And in a month there swarm from his dead body 
A thousand — nay, ten thousand sentient beings 
In place of that one man whom I had kill'd. 
Now who shall tell me, that each one and all, 
Of these ten thousand lives, is not as happy 
As that one life, which being shoved aside 
Made room for these ten thousand ? 

VELEZ. 

Wild as madness ! 

OSORIO t 

Come, father ! you have taught me to be merry, 
And merrily we'll pore upon this picture. 

velez [holding the picture before ©soeio]. 

That Moor, who points his sword at Albert's 
breast 



66 OSOEIO : 

osoeio [abruptly']. 

A tender-hearted, scrupulous, grateful villain, 
Whom I will strangle ! 

VELEZ. 

And these other two 

OSOEIO. 

Dead-— dead already ! — what care I for the dead ? 

VELEZ. 

The heat of brain and your too strong affection 
For Albert, fighting with your other passion, 
Unsettle you, and give reality 
To these your own contrivings. 

osoeio. 

Is it so ? 
Tou see through all things with your penetration. 
Now I am calm. How fares it with Maria ? 
My heart doth ache to see her. 

VELEZ. 

Nay — defer it ! 
Defer it, dear Osorio ! I will go. 

[Exit Velez. 









A TRAGEDY. 87 



OSORIO. 



A rim of the sun lies yet upon the sea — 
And now 'tis gone ! all may be done this night ! 

[Enter a Servant. 

OSORIO. 

There is a man, once a Moresco chieftain, 
One Ferdinand. 

Servant. 
He lives in the Alpuxarras, 
Beneath a slate rock. 

OSORIO. 

Slate rock ? 
Servant. 

Yes, my lord ! 
If you had seen it, you must have remember' d 
The flight of steps his children had worn up it 
With often clambering. 

OSORIO. 

Well, it may be so. 

SERVANT. 

Why, now I think on't, at this time of the year 
Tis hid by vines. 



88 osorio : 

osorio [in a muttering voice]. 

The cavern — ay — the cavern. 

He cannot fail to find it. 

[To the Servant. 

Where art going ? 

You must deliver to this Ferdinand 

A letter. Stay till I have written it. 

[Exit the Servant. 

osorio [alone]. 
The tongue can't stir when the mouth is fill'd 

with mould. 
A little earth stops up most eloquent mouths, 
And a square stone with a few pious texts 
Cut neatly on it, keeps the earth down tight. 

Scene changes to the space before the castle. 
Francesco and a Spy. 

FRANCESCO. 

Yes ! yes ! I have the key of all their lives. 
If a man fears me, he is forced to love me. 
And if I can, and do not ruin him, 
He is fast bound to serve and honour me ! 

[Albert enters from the castle, and is crossing 
the stage.] 



a tragedy. 89 

Spy. 

There — there — your Eeverence ! That is the 
sorcerer. 

[Francesco runs wp and rudely catches hold 
of Albert. Albert dashes him to the earth. 
Francesco and the Spy make an uproar, and the 
servants rush from out the castle.'] 

FRANCESCO. 

Seize, seize and gag him ! or the Church curses 
you! 

[The servants seize and gag Albert. 

Enter Yelez and Osorio. 
osorio [aside]. 
This is most lucky ! 

Francesco [inarticulate with rage] . 

See you this, Lord Velez ? 
Good evidence have I of most foul sorcery, 
And in the name of Holy Church command you 
To give me up the keys — the keys, my lord ! 
Of that same dungeon-hole beneath your castle. 
This imp of hell — but we delay enquiry 
Till to Granada we have convoy'd him. 



90 



OSORIO : 



osorio [to the servants']. 

Why haste you not ? Go, fly and dungeon him ! 
Then bring the keys and give them to his 
Reverence. 
[The servants hurry off Albert. Osorio goes 
up to Francesco, and pointing at Albert.] 

osorio [with a laugh]. 
" He that can bring the dead to life again." 

FRANCESCO. 

What ? did you hear it ? 

OSORIO. 

Yes, and plann'd this scheme 
To bring conviction on him. Ho ! a wizard, 
Thought I — but where' s the proof! I plann'd 

this scheme. 
The scheme has answer'd — we have proof enough. 

FRANCESCO. 

My lord, your pious policy astounds me. 
I trust my honest zeal 

OSORIO. 

Kay, reverend father ! 
It has but raised my veneration for you. 



A TRAGEDY. 91 

But 'twould be well to stop all intertalk 
Between my servants and this child of darkness. 

FRANCESCO. 

My lord ! with speed I'll go, make swift return, 
And humbly re-deliver you the keys. 

[Exit Francesco. 

osorio [alone]. 

" The stranger, that lives nigh, still picking 

weeds." 
And this was his friend, his crony, his twin- 
brother ! 
O ! I am green, a very simple stripling — 
The wise men of this world make nothing of me. 
By Heaven, 'twas well contrived ! And I, forsooth, 
I was to cut my throat in honour of conscience. 
And this tall wizard — ho ! — he was to pass 
For Albert's friend ! He hath a trick of his 

manner. 
He was to tune his voice to honey'd sadness, 
And win her to a transfer of her love 
By lamentable tales of her dear Albert, 
And his dear Albert! Yea, she would have 

loved him. 
He, that can sigh out in a woman's ear 



92 



OSORIO. 



Sad recollections of her perish'd lover, 

And sob and smile with veering sympathy, 

And, now and then, as if by accident, 

Pass his mouth close enough to touch her cheek 

With timid lip, he takes the lover's place, 

He takes his place, for certain ! Dusky rogue, 

Were it not sport to whimper with thy mistress, 

Then steal away and roll upon my grave, 

Till thy sides shook with laughter? Blood! 

blood! blood! 
They want thy blood ! thy blood, Osorio ! 



End of Act the Third. 



ACT THE FOUBTH. 

Scene the First. — A cavern, dark except where 
a gleam of moonlight is seen on one side of the 
further end of it, supposed to be cast on it from a 
cranny in a part of the cavern out of sight. 

Ferdinand alone, an extinguished torch in his 
hand. 

FERDINAND. 

Drip ! drip ! drip ! drip ! — in such a place as this 
It has nothing else to do but drip ! drip ! drip ! 
I wish it had not dripp'd upon my torch.* 
Faith 'twas a moving letter — very moving ! 
His life in danger — no place safe but this. 
'Twas his turn now to talk of gratitude ! 

* These are the identical lines which furnished Sheridan 
with his famous joke at the poet's expense. Coleridge's dis- 
avowal of their existence in the preface to the first edition 
of Remorse (see Appendix), shows remarkable forgetful- 
ness, if not disingenuousness. Of course it is needless to 
observe that they entirely disappear in the published play, 
and the Act opens with the line which stands here as the 
fourth. 



94 



osorio : 



And yet — but no ! there can't be such a villain. 

It cannot be ! 

Thanks to that little cranny* 

Which lets the moonlight in ! I'll go and sit 
by it. 

To peep at a tree, or see a he- goat's beard, 

Or hear a cow or two breathe loud in their sleep, 

'Twere better than this dreary noise of water- 
drops !f 
[He goes out of sight, opposite to the patch of 

moonlight, returns after a minute's elapse in an 

ecstasy of 'fear '.] 

A hellish pit ! God — 'tis like my night-mare !} 

I was just in ! — and those damn'd fingers of ice 

Which clutch'd my hair up ! Ha ! what's that ? 
it moved ! 
[Ferdinand stands staring at another recess in 

the cavern. In the meantime Osorio enters with a 

torch and hollas to him.'] 

* crevice [and so also in the stage-direction above]. — 
Remorse. 

f Any thing but this crash of water-drops ! 

These dull abortive sounds, that fret the silence 

With puny thwartings and mock opposition ! 

So beats the death-watch to a sick man's ear. — lb. 

X A hellish pit ! The very same I dreamt of! — lb. 



A TRAGEDY. 95 

FERDINAND. 

I swear, I saw a something* moving there ! 

The moonshine came and went, like a flash of 

lightning. 
I swear, I saw it move ! 

[Osorio goes into the recess, then returns, and 
with great scom.~\ 

OSORIO. 

A jutting clay-stone 
Dripsf on the long lank weed that grows beneath ; 
And the weed nods and drips. 

Ferdinand [forcing a faint laugh~\. 
A joke to laugh at ! 
It was not that which frighten'd me, my lord ! 

OSORIO. 

What frighten'd you ? 

FERDINAND. 

You see that little cranny ?£ 

* I swear that I saw something. — Remorse. 
f Drops. — lb. 
% Thus in Remorse : — 

Isid. (forcing a laugh faintly.) A jest to laugh at ! 
It was not that which scared me, good my lord. 
Ord, What scared you then ? 
Isid, You see that little reft ? 



96 osorio : 

But first permit me, 

[Lights his torch at Osorio' s, and while lighting it. 

A lighted torch in the hand 
Is no unpleasant object here — one's breath 
Floats round the flame, and makes as many- 
colours 
As the thin clouds that travel near the moon. 
You see that cranny there ? 

OSORIO. 

Well, what of that? 

FERDINAND. 

I walk'd up to it, meaning to sit there. 

When I had reach' d it within twenty paces — — 

[Ferdinand starts as if he felt the terror over 
again. .] 
Merciful Heaven ! Do go, my lord ! and look. 

[Osorio goes and returns. 

OSORIO. 

It must have shot some pleasant feelings thro' 
you?* 

* You see that crevice there ? 

My torch extinguish'd by these water drops, 

And marking that the moonlight came from thence, 



A TRAGEDY. 97 

FERDINAND. 

If every atom of a dead man's flesh 

Should move,* each one with a particular 

life, 
Yet all as cold as ever — 'twas just so ! 
Or if it drizzled needle-points of frost 
Upon a feverish head made suddenly bald — 

osorio [interrupting hiin]. 
Why, Ferdinand ! I blush for thy cowardice. 



I stept in to it, meaning- to sit there ; 

But scarcely had I measured twenty paces — 

My body bending forward, yea o'erbalanced 

Almost beyond recoil, on the dim brink 

Of a huge chasm I stept. The shadowy moonshine 

Filling the Void so counterfeited Substance, 

That my foot hung aslant adown the edge. 

Was it my own fear ? 

Fear too hath its instincts ! 
And yet such dens as these are wildly told of, 
And there are Beings that live, yet not for the eye — 
An arm of frost above and from behind me, 
Pluck'd up and snatched me backward. Merciful Heaven ! 
You smile ! alas, even smiles look ghastly here ! 
My lord, I pray you, go yourself and view it. 

Ord. It must have shot some pleasant feelings through 
you. — Remorse. 

* Should creep. — lb. 

H 



98 osorio . 

It would have startled any man, I grant thee. 
But such a panic.* 

FERDINAND. 

When a boy, niy lord ! 
I could have sat whole hours beside that chasm, 
Push'd in huge stones and heard them thump 

and rattlef 
Against its horrid sides ; and hung my head 
Low down, and listen' d till the heavy fragments 
Sunk, with faint splash, $ in that still groaning 

well, 
Which never thirsty pilgrim blest, which never 
A living thing came near ; unless, perchance, 
Some blind- worm battens§ on the ropy mould, 
Close at its edge. 

OSORIO. 

Art thou more coward now ? 

* In Remorse the above speech stands thus : — 
Orel, {interrupting Mm.) Why Isidore, 
I blush for thy cowardice. It might have startled, 
I grant you, even a brave man for a moment— 
But such a panic 

f strike and rattle. — Remorse. 

J with faint crash. — lb. 

§ fattens. — lb. 



A TRAGEDY. 99 



FERDINAND. 



Call hira that fears his fellow-men a coward. 
I fear not man. But this inhuman cavern 
It were too bad a prison-house for goblins. 
Besides (you'll laugh,* my lord !) but true it is, 
My last night's sleep was very sorely haunted 
By what had pass'd between us in the morning. 
I saw you in a thousand hideous ways, 
And dozed and started, dozed again and started. 
I do entreat your lordship to believe me,f 
In my last dream 

osorio. 

Well? 

FERDINAND. 

I was in the act 
Of falling down that chasm, when Alhadra 
Waked me. She heard my heart beat ! 

OSORIO. 

Strange enough ! 
Had you been here before ? 

* you'll smile. — Remorse. 

f I saw you in a thousand fearful shapes, 

And I entreat your lordship to believe me. — lb. 



100 OSORIO : 

FERDINAND. 

Never, my lord ! 
But my eyes do not see it now more clearly 
Than in my dream I saw that very chasm. 

[Osorio stands in a deep study — then, after a 
pause.'] 

OSORIO. 

There is no reason why it should be so. 
And yet it is.* 

FERDINAND. 

What is, my lord ? 

OSORIO. 

Unpleasantf 
To kill a man ! 

FERDINAND. 

Except in self-defence. 

OSORIO. 

Why that's my case : and yet 'tis still unpleasant. 
At least I find it so ! But you, perhaps, 
Have stronger nerves ? 

* I know not why it should be ! yet it is. — Remorse. 
t Abhorrent from our nature. — lb. 



A TRAGEDY. 101 

FERDINAND. 

Something doth trouble you. 
Sow can I serve you ?* By the life you gave me, 
By all that makes that life of value to me, 
My wife, my babes, my honour, I swear to you, 
Name it, and I will toil to do the thing, 
If it be innocent ! But this, my lord ! 
Is not a place where you could perpetrate, 
No, nor propose a wicked thing. The darkness 
(When ten yards off, we know, 'tis cheerful 

moonlight) 
Collects the guilt and crowds it round the heart. 
It must be innocent. 

OSORIO. 

Thyself be judge. 
[Osorio walks round the cavern — then looking 
round it.~\ 
One of our family knew this place well. 

FERDINAND. 

Who ? when ? my lord. 

* Ord. Why that's my case! and yet the soul recoils 
from it — 
'Tis so with me at least. But you, perhaps, 
Have sterner feelings ? 

Isid. Something troubles you, 

How shall I serve you ? — Remorse. 



102 OSOEIO : 

OSOEIO. 

What boots it who or when ? 
Hang up the torch. I'll tell his tale to thee. 
[They hang their torches in some shelf of the cavern* 

OSOEIO. 

He was a man different from other men, 
And he despised them, yet revered himself. 

FEEDINAND.f 

What ? he was mad ? 

OSOEIO. 

All men seem'd mad to him, 
Their actions noisome folly, and their talk — 
A goose's gabble was more musical. t 
Nature had made him for some other planet, 
And press'd his soul into a human shape 
By accident or malice. In this world 
He found no fit companion ! 

# on some ridge in the cavern.'] — Remorse. 
f Ferdinand's (Isidore's) speech is amplified in Remorse : — 
Isid. (aside.) 

He ? He despised ? Thou'rt speaking of thyself ! 

I am on my guard however : no surprise. 

(then to Oedonio.) 
What he was mad ? 

% The above two lines are omitted in Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 103 

FERDINAND.* 

Ah, poor wretch ! 
Madmen are mostly proud. 

OSORIO. 

He walk'd alone, 
And phantasies,! unsought for, troubled him. 
Something within would still be shadowing out 
All possibilities, and with these shadows 
His mind held dalliance. Once, as so it happen'd, 
A fancy cross' d him wilder than the rest : 
To this in moody murmur, and low voice, 
He yielded utterance, as some talk in sleep. 

The man who heard him 

"Why didst thou look round ? 

FERDINAND. 

I have a prattler three years old, my lord ! 

In truth he is my darling. As I went 

From forth my door, he made a moan in sleep — 

But I am talking idly — pray go on ! J 

And what did this man ? 

* Of himself lie speaks. 

Alas ! poor wretch ! — Remorse. 
f And phantom thoughts. — lb. 
X pray proceed. — lb. 



104 0S0RI0 : 

OSORIO. 

With his human hand 

He gave a being and reality* 

To that wild fancy of a possible thing. 

Well it was done. 

[Then very wildly, 

Why babblest thou of guilt ? 

The deed was done, and it pass'd fairly off. 

And he, whose tale I tell thee — dost thou listen ? 

FERDINAND. 

I would, my lord, you were by my fireside ! 
I'd listen to you with an eager eye, 
Tho' you began this cloudy tale at midnight. 
But I do listen — pray proceed, my lord ! 



OSOEIO. 

Where was I ? 

FERDINAND. 

He of whom you tell the tale — 

OSORIO. 

Surveying all things with a quiet scorn 
Tamed himself down to living purposes, 

* He gave a substance and reality. — Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 105 



The occupations and the semblances 
Of ordinary men — and such he seem'd. 
But that some over-ready agent — he — 



FERDINAND. 

Ah ! what of him, my lord ? 

OSORIO. 

He proved a villain ; 
Betray'd the mystery to a brother villain ;* 
And they between them hatch'd a damned plot 
To hunt him down to infamy and death 
To share the wealth of a most noble family, 
And stain the honour of an orphan lady 
With barbarous mixture and unnatural union.f 
What did the Yelez ? I am proud of the name, 
Since he dared do it. 

[Osorio grasps his sword and turns off from 
Ferdinand, then, after a pause, returns."] 

OSORIO. 

Our links burn dimly. 



* He proved a traitor, 
Betray'd the mystery to a brother traitor.— Remors 
f The above three lines are omitted in Remorse* 



106 OSORIO : 

FERDINAND. 

A dark tale darkly finish' d ! Nay, my lord ! 
Tell what he did. 

osorio '[fiercely']. 

That which his wisdom prompted. 
He made the traitor meet him in this cavern, 
And here he kill'd the traitor. 

FERDINAND. 

No !— the fool. 
He had not wit enough to be a traitor. 
Poor thick- eyed beetle ! not to have foreseen 
That he, who gull'd thee with a whimper' d lie 
To murder Ms own brother, would not scruple 
To murder thee, if e'er his guilt grew jealous, 
And he could steal upon thee in the dark ! 

OSORIO. 

Thou would' st not then have come, if 



FERDINAND. 

O yes, my lord ! 
I would have met him arm'd, and scared the 
coward ! 
[Ferdinand throws off Ms robe, shows himself 
armed, and draws Ms sword.] 



A TRAGEDY. 107 

OSORIO. 

Now this is excellent, and warms the blood ! 
My heart was drawing back, drawing me back 
With womanish pules of pity. Dusky slave, 
Now I will kill thee pleasantly, and count it* 
Among my comfortable thoughts hereafter. 

FERDINAND. 

And all my little ones fatherless ! Die thou first. 
[They fight. Osorio disarms Ferdinand, and in 
disarming him, throws his sword up that recess, 
opposite to which they were standing^ 

Ferdinand [springing wildly towards Osorio]. 
Still I can strangle thee ! 

osorio. 

Nay, fool ! stand off. 
I'll kill thee — but not so ! G-o fetch thy sword. 

[Ferdinand hurries into the recess with his 
torch. Osorio follows him, and in a moment 
returns alone.~\ 

* My heart was drawing back, drawing me back 

With weak and womanish scruples. Now my Vengeance 
Beckons me onwards with a Warrior's mien, 
And claims that life my pity robb'd her of — 
Now will I kill thee, thankless slave, and count it, &c. 

— Remorse. 



108 OSORIO : 

OSORIO. 

Now — this was luck ! No blood-stains, no dead 

body ! 
His dream, too, is made out. Now for bis friend. 

[Exit* 

Scene changes to the court before the Castle of 
Yelez. 

t Maria and her Foster-Mother. 

MARIA. 

And wben I beard tbat you desired to see me, 
I thougbt your business was to tell me of bim. 

* Oedonio folloivs him; a loud cry of "Traitor! 
Monster !" is heard from the cavern, and in a moment 
Oedonio returns alone. 

Ord. I have hurl'd hini down the chasm ! Treason for 
treason. 
He dreamt of it : henceforward let him sleep, 
A dreamless sleep, from which no wife can wake him. 
His dream too is made out — Now for his friend. 

[Exit Oedonio. 

— Remorse. 
f The whole of this scene between Maria and her foster- 
mother was omitted as unfit for the stage in the acted 
Remorse, but was afterwards, with the exception of the first 
two speeches, printed in an appendix to the third edition 



A TRAGEDY. 109 

FOSTER-MOTHER. 

I never saw the Moor, # whom you describe. 

MARIA. 

'Tis strange ! he spake of youf familiarly 
As mine and Albert's common foster-mother. 

I FOSTER-MOTHER. 

Now blessings on the man, whoe'er he be, 

That join'd your names with mine ! my sweet 

lady, 
As often as I think of those dear times 
When you two little ones would stand at eve, 
On each side of my chair, and make me learn 
All you had learnt in the day ; and how to talk 

(1813). All of it but the first speech originally appeared, 
under the title of " The Foster-Mother's Tale ; a Dramatic 
Fragment," as one of Coleridge's contributions to the Lyrical 
Ballads, 1798, and continued to appear there, with some 
further omission as regards the opening part, in the later 
editions of 1800, 1802, and 1805. Cottle in his Early Recol- 
lections of Coleridge (Lond., 1837, vol. I., pp. 234, 235), 
prints a version of it, with some slight variations, from a 
copy in Coleridge's own writing, given to him by the poet in 
the summer of 1797. 

* I never saw the man. — Lyrical Ballads, 1798. 

f 'Tis said he spake of you. — Appbndix to Remorse. 

X Cottle's version opens here. 



110 0S0RI0 : 

In gentle phrase, then bid me sing to you, 
'Tis more like heaven to come, than what has 
been! 

MARIA. 

my dear mother ! this strange man has left me 
Wilder'd with wilder fancies than yon moon* 
Breeds in the love-sick maid — who gazes at it 
Till lost in inward vision, with wet eye 
She gazes idly ! f But that entrance, mother ! t 

FOSTER-MOTHER. 

Can no one hear ? It is a perilous tale ! 

maria- 
No one. 

FOSTER-MOTHER. 

My husband's father told it me, 
Poor old Leoni.§ Angels rest his soul ! 
He was a woodman, and could fell and saw 

* Troubled with wilder fancies than the moon. — Lyrical 
Ballads (1798) and Cottle's version. 

f In the later editions of the Lyrical Ballads the pre- 
vious part is omitted, and the scene opens here. 

% But that entrance, Selma. Appendix to Remorse, where 
the previous part of this speech is omitted. 

§ Poor old Sesina. — Appendix to Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. Ill 

With lusty arm. You know that huge round 

beam 
Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel ? 
Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree, 
He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined 
With thistle-beards, and such small locks of 

wool 
As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him 

home, 
And rear'd him at the then Lord Yelez' cost. 
And so the babe grew up a pretty boy. 
A pretty boy, but most unteachable — 
And never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead, 
But knew the names of birds, and mock'd their 

notes, 
And whistled, as he were a bird himself. 
And all the autumn 'twas his only play 
To get the seeds* of wild flowers, and to plant 

them 
With earth and water on the stumps of trees. 
A friar who gather'd simples in the wood, 
A grey-hair'd man — he loved this little boy, 
The boy loved him — and, when the friar taught 

him, 

* To gather seeds. — Appendix to Remorse, 



112 osorio : 

He soon could write with the pen ; and from that 

time 
Lived chiefly at the convent or the castle. 
So he became a very learned youth.* 
But ! poor wretchf — he read, and read, and 

read, 
Till his brain turn'd — and ere his twentieth year, 
He had unlawful thoughts of many things. 
And though he pray'd, he never loved to pray 
"With holy men, nor in a holy place. 
But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet, 
The late Lord Yelez ne'er was wearied with him, 
And once as by the north side of the chapel 
They stood together, chain'd in deep discourse, 
The earth heaved under them with such a groan, 
That the wall totter'd, and had well-nigh fall'n 
Right on their heads. My lord was sorely 

frighten' d ; 
A fever seized him ;J and he made a confession§ 

* So he became a very learned man. — Cottle's version. 

So he became a rare and learned youth. — Appendix to 
Remorse. 

f But O ! poor youth. — Cottle's version. 

X a fever seized the youth. — lb. 

§ he made confession. — Cottle, Appendix to Remorse, 
and Lyrical Ballads. The insertion of the article in the 
text was probably an error of the transcriber. 



A TRAGEDY. 



113 



Of all the heretical and lawless talk 

Which brought this judgment : so the youth was 

seized 
And cast into that hole.* My husband's father 
Sobb'd like a child — it almost broke his heart. 
And once as he was working in the cellar,f 
He heard a voice distinctly ; 'twas the youth's, 
Who sung a doleful song about green fields, 
How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah 
To hunt for food, and be a naked man, 
And wander up and down at liberty. 
He always doted on the youth, and now 
His love grew desperate ; and defying death, 
He made that cunning entrance I described : 
And the young man escaped. 

MARIA. 

'Tis a sweet tale : 
Such as would lull a listening child to sleep, 
His rosy face besoil'd with unwiped tears. 
And what became of him ? 

FOSTER-MOTHER. 

He went on shipboard 



* And cast into that den. — Appendix to Remorse 
f working 1 near this dungeon. — lb. 



114 osorio : 

With those bold voyagers, who made discovery 
Of golden lands ; Leoni's* younger brother 
Went likewise, and when he return'd to Spain, 
He told Leoni* that the poor mad youth, 
Soon after they arrived in that new world, 
In spite of his dissuasion seized a boat, 
And all alone set sail by silent moonlight, 
Up a great river, great as any sea, 
And ne'er was heard of more ; but 'tis supposed 
He lived and died among the savage nien.f 

* Sesina, — Appendix to 'Remorse. 

f Here ends The Foster-Mother 's Tale as given in the 
Lyrical Ballads, in the Appendix to Remorse, and in Cottle's 
Recollections. In the published Remorse the entrance of 
Valdez (Velez) is preceded by the following sololiquy of 
Teresa (Maria) : — 

SCENE II. 

The Sea Coast. 
Ter. Heart- chilling Superstition ! thou canst glaze 
Even Pity's eye with her own frozen tear. 
In vain I urge the tortures that await him ; 
Even Selrna, reverend guardian of my childhood, 
My second mother, shuts her heart against me ! 
Well, I have won from her what most imports 
The present need, this secret of the dungeon 
Known only to herself. — A Moor ! a Sorcerer ! 
No, I have faith, that nature ne'er permitted 
Baseness to wear a form so noble. True, 



A TRAGEDY. 115 

Enter Velez. 

VELEZ. 

Still sad, Maria ? This same wizard haunts you. 

MARIA. 

Christ ! the tortures that hang o'er his head, 
If ye betray him to these holy brethren !* 

velez [with a kind of sneer'] . 

A portly man, and eloquent, and tender ! 
In truth, I shall not wonder if you mourn 
That their rude grasp should seize on such a 
victim. 

1 doubt not, that Ordonio had suborn' d him 
To act some part in some unholy fraud ; 

As little doubt, that for some unknown purpose 
He hath baffled his suborner, terror-struck him, 
And that Ordonio meditates revenge ! 
But my resolve is fix'd ! myself will rescue him, 
And learn if haply he know aught of Alvar. 

* In the published Remorse this speech is omitted, and 
the former speaker continues uninterruptedly : — 

Vol. Still sad, Teresa ! This same wizard haunts you, 

A stately man, and eloquent and tender 

{with a snee-r) 
Who then need wonder if a lady sighs 
Even at the thought of what these stern Dominicans 



116 OSORIO : 

MARIA. 

The horror of their ghastly punishments 
Doth so o'ertop the height of sympathy, 
That I should feel too little for mine enemy — 
Ah ! far too little — if 'twere possible, 
I could feel more, even tho' my child or husband 
Were doom'd to suffer them ! # That such things 
are 

VELEZ. 

Hush ! thoughtless woman ! 

MAEIA. 

Nay — it wakes within me 
More than a woman's spirit. 

velez [angrily]. 

No more of this — 
I can endure no more. 

* Thus in Remorse : — 

Ter. {with solemn indignation.) 
The horror of their ghastly punishments 
Doth so o'ertop the height of all compassion, 
That I should feel too little for mine enemy, 
If it were possible I could feel more, 
Even tho' the dearest inmates of our household 
Were doom'd to suffer them, Sec. 



A TRAGEDY. 117 



FOSTER-MOTHER. 



My honour' d master ! 
Lord Albert used to talk so. 

MARIA. 

Yes ! my mother ! 
These are my Albert's lessons, and I con them 
With more delight than, in my fondest hour, 
I bend me o'er his portrait. 

velez [to the poster-mother]. 

My good woman, 

You may retire. 

[Exit the Foster-Mother. 

VELEZ. 

We have mourn'd for Albert. 
Have I no living son ? 

MARIA. 

Speak not of him ! 
That low imposture — my heart sickens at it, 
If it be madness, must I wed a madman ?* 

* Thus in Remorse : — 

Void. No more of this — 
What if Monviedro or his creatures hear us ! 
I dare not listen to you. 



118 OSORIO : 

And if not madness, there is mystery, 
And guilt doth lurk behind it ! 

VELEZ. 

Is this well ? 

MARIA. 

Yes ! it is truth. Saw you his countenance ? 
How rage, remorse, and scorn, and stupid fear, 
Displaced each other with swift interchanges ? 
If this were all assumed, as you believe, 
He must needs be a most consummate actor ; 
And hath so vast a power to deceive me, 
I never could be safe. And why assume 
The semblance of such execrable feelings ? # 

Ter. My honoured lord 
These were my Alvar's lessons, and whene'er 
I bend me o'er his portrait, I repeat them, 
As if to give a voice to the mute Image. 

Void, We have mourn'd for Alvar, 

Of his sad fate there now remains no doubt. 
Have I no other son ? 

Ter. Speak not of him ! 
That low imposture ! That mysterious picture! 
If this be madness, Sfc. 

* For the last five lines of this speech the following 
twenty -five are substituted in the published Remorse :■ — 

that I had indeed the sorcerer's power — 

1 would call up before thine eyes the image 
Of my betrothed Alvar, of thy first born. 









A TRAGEDY. 119 



VELEZ. 



Ungrateful woman ! I have tried to stifle 
An old man's passion ! Was it not enough 
That thou hast made my son a restless man, 
Banish' d his health and half-unhinged his reason, 
But that thou wilt insult him with suspicion, 
And toil to blast his honour ? I am old — 

His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead, 
His tender smiles, love's day-dawn on his lips ! 
That spiritual and almost heavenly light 
In his commanding eye — his mien heroic, 
Virtue's own native heraldry ! to man 
Genial, and pleasant to Ms guardian angel. 
Whene'er he gladden' d, how the gladness spread 
Wide round him ! and when oft with swelling tears, 
Flash'd through by indignation, he bewail'd 
The wrongs of Belgium's martyr'd patriots, 
Oh, what a grief was there for Joy to envy, 
Or gaze upon enamour'd ! 

O my father ! 
Recall that morning when we knelt together, 
And thou didst bless our loves ! O even now, 
Even now, my sire ! to thy mind's eye present him 
As at that moment he rose up before thee, 
Stately, with beaming look ! Place, place beside him 
Ordonio's dark perturbed countenance ! 
Then bid me (oh thou couldst not) bid me turn 
From him, the joy, the triumph of our kind ! 
To take in exchange that brooding man, who never 
Lifts up his eye from the earth, unless to scowl. 



120 osorio : 

A comfortless old man !* Thou shalt not stay 
Beneath my roof ! 

[Francesco enters and stands listening. 

VELEZ. 

Eepent and marry him — 
Or to the convent. 

* Here the speech of Valdez (Velez) breaks off in Remorse, 
and 
" Enter a peasant and presents a letter to Valdez. Valdez 

reading it. 
" He dares not venture hither !" Why what can this mean ? 
" Lest the Familiars of the Inquisition, 
"That watch around my gates, should intercept him; 
" But he conjures me, that without delay 
" I hasten to him — for my own sake entreats me 
" To guard from danger him I hold imprison' d — 
" He will reveal a secret, the j oy of which 
" Will even outweigh the sorrow," — Why what can this be ? 
Perchance it is some Moorish stratagem, 
To have in me an hostage for his safety. 
Nay, that they dare not ? Ho ! collect my servants ! 
I will go thither — let them arm themselves. 

[Exit Valdez. 

Ter. {alone.) The moon is high in heaven, and all is 
hush'd. 
Yet anxious listener ! I have seem'd to hear 
A low dead thunder mutter thro' the night, 
As 'twere a giant angry in his sleep 
O Alvar ! Alvar ! that they could return," fye. 



A TRAGEDY. 



121 



Francesco [muttering]. 

Good ! good ! very good ! 

MARIA. 

Nay, grant me some small pittance of my fortune, 
And I will live a solitary woman, 
Or my poor foster-mother and her grandsons 
May be my household. 

Francesco [advancing], 

I abhor a listener ; 
But you spoke so, I could not choose but hear you. 
I pray, my lord ! will you embolden me 
To ask you why this lady doth prefer 
To live in lonely sort, without a friend 
Or fit companion ? 

velez. 

Bid her answer you. 

MARIA. 

Nature will be my friend and fit companion. 

[Turns off from them, 
O Albert ! Albert ! that they could return, 
Those blessed days, that imitated heaven ! 
When we two wont to walk at evening-tide ; 



m 



122 osomo : 

When we saw nought but beauty ; when we 

heard 
The voice of that Almighty One, who loved us, 
In every gale that breathed, and wave that 

murmur' d ! 
we have listen'd, even till high-wrought 

pleasure 
Hath half-assumed the countenance of grief, 
And the deep sigh seenr d to heave up a weight 
Of bliss, that press'd too heavy on the heart.* 

f FRANCESCO. 

But in the convent, lady, you would have 

Such aids as might preserve you from perdition. 

There you might dwell. 

# The above ten lines are preserved in Remorse, where the 
speech of Teresa (Maria) is thus concluded : — 

{a pause. 
And this majestic Moor, seems he not one 
Who oft and long communing with my Alvar, 
Hath drunk in kindred lustre from his presence, 
And guides me to him with reflected light ? 
What if in yon dark dungeon coward treachery 
Be groping for him with envenom' d poignard — 
Hence womanish fears, traitors to love and duty — 
I'll free him. [Exit Teresa. 

f All the rest of this Scene is omitted in the published 
Remorse. 






A TRAGEDY. 123 

MARIA. 

With tame and credulous faith, 
Mad melancholy, antic merriment, 
Leanness, disquietude, and secret pangs ! 

G-od ! it is a horrid thing to know 

That each pale wretch, who sits and drops her 

beads 
Had once a mind, which might have given her 

wings 
Such as the angels wear ! 

Francesco [stifling Ms rage]. 
Where is your son, my lord? 

VELEZ. 

1 have not seen him, father, since he left you. 

FRANCESCO. 

His lordship's generous nature hath deceived him ! 

That Ferdinand (or if not he his wife) 

I have fresh evidence — are infidels. 

We are not safe until they are rooted out. 

MARIA. 

Thou man, who call'st thyself the minister 
Of Him whose law was love unutterable ! 
Why is thy soul so parch' d with cruelty, 



124 osorio : 

That still thou thirstest for thy brother's blood ? 

velez [rapidly']. 

Father ! I have long suspected it — her brain — 
Heed it not, father ! 

FRANCESCO. 

Nay — but I must heed it. 

MARIA. 

Thou miserable man ! I fear thee not, 

Nor prize a life which soon may weary me. 

Bear witness, Heaven ! I neither scorn nor hate 

him — 
But ! 'tis wearisome to mourn for evils, 
Still mourn, and have no power to remedy ! 

[Exit Maria. 

FRANCESCO. 

My lord ! I shall presume to wait on you 
To-morrow early. 

VELEZ. 

Be it so, good father ! 

[Exit Francesco. 

velez [alone]. 
I do want solace, but not such as thine ! 



A TRAGEDY. 125 

The moon is high in heaven, and my eyes ache, 
But not with sleep. "Well — it is ever so. 
A child, a child is born ! and the fond heart 
Dances ! and yet the childless are most happy. 

Scene changes to the mountains by moonlight 
Alhadra alone in a Moorish dress, her eyes fixed 
on the earth. Then drop in one after another, from 
different parts of the stage, a considerable number of 
Morescoes, all in their Moorish garments. They 
form a circle at a distance round Alhadra. After 
a pause one of the Morescoes to the man who stands 
next to him.~\ 

FIRST MORESCO. 

The law which forced these Christian dresses on us ? 
'Twere pleasant to cleave down the wretch who 
framed it. 

SECOND. 

Yet 'tis not well to trample on it idly. 

FIRST. 

Our country robes are dear. 

SECOND. 

And like dear friends, 



126 osoeio : 

May chance to prove most perilous informers.* 

A third Moresco, Naomi, advances from out the 
circle.~\ 

NAOMI. 

Woman ! may Alia and the prophet bless thee ! 
We have obey'd thy call. Where is our chief? 
And why didst thou enjoin the Moorish garments ? 

alhadra [lifting up her eyes, and looking round 

on the circle]. 
Warriors of Mahomet, faithful in the battle, 
My countrymen ! Come ye prepared to work 
An honourable deed ? And would ye work it 
In the slave's garb ? Curse on those Christian 

robes ! 
They are spell- blasted ; and whoever wears them, 
His arm shrinks wither'd, his heart melts away, 
And his bones soften ! 

NAOMI. 

Wnere is Ferdinand ? 

alhadea [in a deep low voice']. 
This night I went from forth my house, and left 

* The four preceding speeches, together with the last clause 
of the preliminary stage directions, are omitted in Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 127 

His children all asleep ; and lie was living ! 
And I return'd, and fonnd them still asleep — 
Bnt he had perish' d. 

ALL. 

Perished ? 

ALHADRA. 

He had perish' d ! 
Sleep on, poor babes ! not one of you doth know 
That he is fatherless, a desolate orphan ! 
Why should we wake them ? Can an infant's arm 
Revenge his murder ? 

ONE to ANOTHER. 

Did she say his murder ? 

NAOMI. 

Murder' d? Not murder' d? 

ALHADRA. 

Murder' d by a Christian ! 
[They all, at once, draw their sabres. 

alhadra [to naomi, who on being addressed again 
advances from the circle']. 

Brother of Zagri ! fling away thy sword : 



128 osorio : 

This is thy chieftain's ! 

[He steps forward to take it. 
Dost thou dare receive it ? 
For I have sworn by Alia and the prophet, 
No tear shall dim these eyes, this woman's heart 
Shall heave no groan, till I have seen that sword 
Wet with the blood of all the house of Velez ! # 

[Enter Maurice. 

ALL. 

A spy ! a spy ! 

[They seize him. 

MAURICE. 

Off ! off ! unhand me, slaves ! 
[After much struggling he disengages himself and 
draivs his sword.~\ 

NAOMI [to ALHADRA]. 

Speak ! shall we kill him ? 

MAURICE. 

Yes ! ye can kilt a man, 
Some twenty of you ! But ye are Spanish slaves ! 
And slaves are always cruel, always cowards. 

ALHADRA. 

That man has spoken truth. Whence and who 
art thou ? 

* Wet with the life-blood of the son of Valdez ! — Remorse, 



A TRAGEDY. 



129 



MAURICE. 

I seek a dear friend, whom for aught I know 

The son of Yelez hath hired one of you 

To murder ! Say, do ye know aught of Albert ? 

alhadea [starting']. 

Albert ? — three years ago I heard that name 
Murmur'd in sleep ! High-minded foreigner ! 
Mix thy revenge with mine, and stand among us. 

[Maurice stands among the Morescoes. 

ALHADRA. 

Was not Osorio my husband's friend? 

OLD MAN. 

He kill'd my son in battle ; yet our chieftain 
Forced me to sheathe my dagger. See — the point 
Is bright, unrusted with the villain's blood ! 

ALHADRA. 

He is your chieftain's murderer ! # 

NAOMI. 

He dies by Alia ! 



* All the preceding part, from the entrance of Maurice, is 
omitted in Remorse, and Alhadra continues after a pause ; — 
" Ordonio was your chieftain's murderer !" 



130 OSORIO : 



all [dropping on one Jcnee\. 
By Alia! 

ALHADRA, 

This night a reeking slave came with loud pant, 
Gave Ferdinand a letter, and departed, 
Swift as he came. Pale, with unquiet looks, 
He read the scroll. 

MAURICE. 

Its purport ? 

ALHADRA. 

Yes, I ask'd it. 
He answer'd me, " Alhadra ! thou art worthy 
A nobler secret ; but I have been faithful 
To this bad man, and faithful I will be." 
He said, and arm'd himself, and lit a torch ; 
Then kiss'd his children, each one on its pillow, 
And hurried from me.* But I follow' d him 
At distance, till I saw him enter there. 

* The arrival of the slave, the interruption of Maurice, and 
the kissing of the bahes, are all omitted in Remorse, where 
Alhadra relates briefly : — 

" This night your chieftain arm'd himself 
And hurried from me," Sfc. 



A TRAGEDY. 



NAOMI. 



131 



The cavern? 

ALHADEA. 

Yes — the mouth of yonder cavern. 
After a pause I saw the son of Yelez 
Eush by with flaring torch ; he likewise enter' d — 
There was another and a longer pause — 
And once, niethought, I heard the clash of swords, 
And soon the son of Velez reappear'd. 
He flung his torch towards the moon in sport, 
And seem'd as he were mirthful! I stood 

listening 
Impatient for the footsteps of my husband ! 

MAUEICE. 

Thou called' st him ? 

ALHADEA. 

I crept into the cavern : 
'Twas dark and very silent. 

[Then wildly. 
What said'st thou ? 
No, no ! I did not dare call, Ferdinand ! 
Lest I should hear no answer. A brief while, 
Belike, I lost all thought and memory 
Of that for which I came ! After that pause, 



132 osoeio : 

God!* I heard a groan ! — and follow'd it. 
And yet another groan — which gnided me 
Into a strange recess — and there was light, 

A hideous light ! his torch lay on the ground — 
Its flame burnt dimly o'er a chasm's brink. 

1 spake — and while I spake, a feeble groan 
Came from that chasm ! It was his last ! his 

death groan ! 

MAURICE. 

Comfort her, comfort her, Almighty Father !f 

ALHADRA. 

I stood in unimaginable trance 
And agony, that cannot be remember'd, 
Listening with horrid hope to hear a groan ! 
But I had heard his last — my husband's death- 
groan ! 

NAOMI. 

Haste ! let us go !{ 

* Heaven ! — Remorse. 

f In Memorse it is Naomi who here interposes with 
" Comfort her, Alia." After which — 

All. Haste let us seek the murderer ! 
X Haste ! let us onward ! — Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 133 



ALHADEA. 



I look'd far down the pit. 

My sight was bounded by a jutting fragment, 

And it was stain' d with blood ! Then first I 

shriek'd ! 

My eyeballs burnt ! my brain grew hot as fire ! 

And all the hanging drops of the wet roof 

Turn'd into blood. I saw them turn to blood ! 

And I was leaping wildly down the chasm 

When on the further brink I saw his sword, 

And it said, Vengeance ! Curses on my tongue ! 

The moon hath moved in heaven, and I am here, 

And he hath not had vengeance ! Ferdinand ! 

Spirit of Ferdinand ! thy murderer lives ! 

Away ! away ! 

[She rushes off, all following 



End op the Fourth Act. 






ACT THE FIFTH. 

Scene the First. — The Sea Shore. 

Naomi and a Moresco. 

moresco. 

This was no time for freaks of useless vengeance. 

NAOMI. 

True ! but Francesco, the Inquisitor, 

Thou know'st the bloodhound — 'twas a strong 

temptation. 
And when they pass'd within a mile of his house, 
We could not curb them in. They swore by 

Mahomet, 
It were a deed of treachery to their brethren 
To sail from Spain and leave that man alive. 

MORESCO. 

Where is Alhadra ? 

NAOMI. 

She moved steadily on 
Unswerving from the path of her resolve. 
Yet each strange object fix'd her eye: for grief 
Doth love to dally with fantastic shapes, 



136 osoeio : 

And smiling, like a sickly moralist, 
Gives some resemblance of her own concerns 
To the straws of chance, and things inanimate. 
I seek her here ; stand thou upon the watch. 

[Exit Moeesco 

naomi [looking wistfully to the distance]. 

Stretch'd on the rock! It mnst be she — Alhadra! 

[Alhadea rises from the rock, and advances slowly, 

as if musing.'] 

NAOMI. 

Once more, well met! what ponder' st thou so 
deeply ? 

ALHADEA. 

I scarce can tell thee ! For my many thoughts 

Troubled me, till with blank and naked mind 

I only listen'd to the dashing billows. 

It seems to me, I could have closed my eyes 

And waked without a dream of what has pass'd ; 

So well it counterfeited quietness, 

This wearied heart of mine ! 

NAOMI. 

'Tis thus by nature 
Wisely ordain' d, that so excess of sorrow 
Might bring its own cure with it. 



A TRAGEDY. 137 

ALHADRA. 

Would to Heaven 
That it had brought its last and certain cure ! 
That ruin in the wood. 

NAOMI. 

It is a place 
Of ominous fame ; but 'twas the shortest road, 
Nor could we else have kept clear of the village. 
Yet some among us, as they scaled the wall, 
Mutter'd old rhyming prayers. 

ALHADRA. 

On that broad wall 
I saw a skull ; a poppy grew beside it, 
There was a ghastly solace in the sight ! 

NAOMI. 

I mark'd it not, and in good truth the night-bird 

Curdled my blood, even till it prick'd the heart. 

Its note comes dreariest in the fall of the year : 

[Looking round impatiently. 

Why don't they come ? I will go forth and meet 

them. 

[Exit Naomi, 
alhadra [alone]. 

The hanging woods, that touch'd by autumn 

seein'd 



138 osoeio : 

As they were blossoming hues of fire and gold, 
The hanging woods, most lovely in decay, 
The many clouds, the sea, the rock, the sands, 
Lay in the silent moonshine ; and the owl, 
(Strange ! very strange !) the screech owl only 

waked, 
Sole voice, sole eye of all that world of beauty ! 
Why such a thing am I ! Where are these men ? 
I need the sympathy of human faces 
To beat away this deep contempt for all things 
Which quenches my revenge. Oh ! — would to 

Alia 
The raven and the sea-mew were appointed 
To bring me food, or rather that my soul 
Could drink in life from the universal air ! 
It were a lot divine in some small skiff, 
Along some ocean's boundless solitude, 
To float for ever with a careless course, 
And think myself the only being alive ! 

[Naomi re-enters. 

NAOMI. 

Thy children- 

ALHADKA. 

Children ? Whose children ? 

[A pause — then fiercely. 



A TRAGEDY. 139 

Son of Yelez, 
This hath new-strung my arm ! Thou coward 

tyrant, 
To stupify a woman's heart with anguish, 
Till she forgot even that she was a mother ! 

[A noise — enter a part of the Morescoes; and 
from the opposite side of the stage a Moorish 
Seaman.] 

moorish seaman. 

The boat is on the shore, the vessel waits. 
Your wives and children are already stow'd ; 
I left them prattling of the Barbary coast, 
Of mosques, and minarets, and golden crescents. 
Each had her separate dream ; but all were gay, 
Dancing, in thought, to finger-beaten timbrels ! 

[Enter Maurice and the rest of the Morescoes 
dragging in Francesco.] 

FRANCESCO. 

spare me, spare me ! only spare my life ! 

AN OLD MAN. 

All hail, Alhadra ! that thou hadst heard him 
When first we dragg'd him forth ! 

[Then turning to the band. 



140 OSORIO : 

Here ! in her presence 

[He advances with his sword as about to hill him. 
Maurice leaps in and stands with his drawn sword 
between Francesco and the Morescoes.] 

MAURICE. 

Nay, but ye shall not ! 

OLD MAN. 

Shall not ? Hah ? Shall not ? 

MAURICE. 

What, an unarm'd man ? 
A man that never wore a sword ? A priest ? 
It is unsoldierly ! I say, ye shall not ! 

old man [turning to the bands']. 
He bears himself most like an insolent Spaniard ! 

MAURICE. 

And ye like slaves, that have destroy'd their 

master, 
But know not yet what freedom means ; how holy 
And just a thing it is ! He's a fall'n foe ! 
Come, come, forgive him ! 

ALL. 

No, by Mahomet ! 



A TRAGEDY. 141 

FRANCESCO. 

mercy, mercy ! talk to them of mercy ! 

OLD MAN. 

Mercy to thee ! No, no, by Mahomet ! 

MAURICE. 

Nay, Mahomet taught mercy and forgiveness. 

1 am sure he did ! 

OLD MAN. 

Ha ! Ha ! Forgiveness ! Mercy ! 

MAURICE. 

If he did not, he needs it for himself ! 

ALHADRA. 

Blaspheming fool ! the law of Mahomet 

Was given by him, who framed the soul of man. 

This the best proof — it fits the soul of man ! 

Ambition, glory, thirst of enterprise, 

The deep and stubborn purpose of revenge, 

With all the boiling revelries of pleasure — 

These grow in the heart, yea, intertwine their roots 

With its minutest fibres ! And that Being 

Who made us, laughs to scorn the lying faith, 



142 080EIO : 

Whose puny precepts, like a wall of sand, 
Would stem the full tide of predestined Nature ! 

naomi [who turns toward Francesco with his 

sword.] 
Speak ! 

ALL [to ALHADEA]. 

Speak ! 

ALHADEA. 

Is the murderer of your chieftain dead ? 
Now as God liveth, who hath suffer'd him 
To make my children orphans, none shall die 
Till I have seen his blood ! 

Off with him to the vessel ! 

[A part of the Moeescoes hurry him off.] 

ALHADEA. 

The tiger, that with unquench'd cruelty, 

Still thirsts for blood, leaps on the hunter's spear 

With prodigal courage. 'Tis not so with man. 

MATJEICE. 

It is not so, remember that, my friends ! 
Cowards are cruel, and the cruel cowards. 



A TRAGEDY. 143 



ALHADRA. 



Scatter yourselves, take each a separate way, 
And move in silence to the house of Yelez. 

[Exeunt* 

Scene. — A Dungeon. 
Albert \_alone~\ rises slowly from a bed of reeds. 

ALBERT. 

And this place my forefathers made for men !f 
This is the process of our love and wisdom 
To each poor brother who offends against us — 
Most innocent, perhaps — and what if guilty ? 
Is this the only cure ? Merciful God ! 
Each pore and natural outlet shrivell'd up 
By ignorance and parching poverty, 
His energies roll back upon his heart, 
And stagnate and corrupt till changed to poison, 

* The whole of the above portion of the fifth act was 
omitted in the published Remorse, where Act V. opens with 
the Dungeon Scene. 

f And this place our forefathers made for man !— Lyrical 
Ballads (1798). 
my forefatbers made for man ! — Remorse. 



144 osorio : 

They break out on him like a loathsome plague- 
spot ! 
Then we call in our pamper' d mountebanks — 
And this is their best cure ! uncomforted 
And friendless solitude, groaning and tears, 
And savage faces at the clanking hour 
Seen thro' the steaming vapours* of his dungeon 
By the lamp's dismal twilight ! So he lies 
Circled with evil, till his very soul 
Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deform'd 
By sights of ever more deformity ! 
With other ministrations thou, Nature ! 
Healest thy wandering and distemper' d child : 
Thou pourest on him thy soft influences, 
Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing 

sweets, 
Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters, 
Till he relent, and can no more endure 
To be a jarring and a dissonant thing 
Amid this general dance and minstrelsy ; 
But bursting into tears wins back his way, 
His angry spirit heal'd and harmonised 



* the steam and vapours. — Remorse. 

the steams and vapour. — Lyrical Ballads (1708). 



A TRAGEDY. 145 

By the benignant touch of love and beauty.* 

[A noise at the dungeon-door. It opens, and 
Osorio enters with a goblet in his hand.] 

OSORIO. 

Hail, potent wizard ! In my gayer mood 

I pour'd forth a libation to old Pluto ;f 

And as I brimm'd the bowl, I thought of thee ! 

albert X [in a low voice]. 

I have not summon' d up my heart to give 

That pang, which I must give thee, son of Velez ! 

osorio [with affected levity']. 

Thou hast conspired against my life and honour, 
Hast trick' d me foully ; yet I hate thee not ! 
Why should I hate thee ? This same world of 
ours — 

* The above soliloquy was published in the Lyrical Ballads 
(1798, pp. 139-140), under the title of The Dungeon. After 
this and before the entrance of Osorio (Ordonio), a new scene 
was added in the published Remorse. (See Appendix.) 

f a libation to oblivion. — Remorse. 

X This interruption of Albert (Alvar) is omitted in 
Remorse. 

L 



146 osorio : 

It is a puddle in a storm of rain,* 

And we the air-bladders, that course up and down, 

And joust and tilt in merry tournament, 

And when one bubble runs foul of another, 

[waving his hand at Albert] 
The lesser must needs break !f 

ALBERT. 

I see thy heart ! 
There is a frightful glitter in thine eye, 
Which doth betray thee. Crazy-conscienced man, 
This is the gaiety of drunken anguish, J 
Which fain would scoff away the pang of guilt, 
And quell each human feeling ! 

OSORIO. 

Feeling ! feeling ! 
The death of a man — the breaking of a bubble. 
'Tis true, I cannot sob for such misfortunes ! 
But faintness, cold, and hunger — curses on me 
If willingly I e'er inflicted them ! 

* 'Tis but a pool amid a storm of rain. — Remorse. 
f The weaker needs must break. — lb. 

% Inly-tortured man, 
This is the wildness of a drunken anguish. — lb. 



A TRAGEDY. 147 

Come, share the beverage — this chill place demands 

it.* 
Friendship and wine ! 

[Osorio proffers him the goblet. 

ALBERT. 

Ton insect on the wall, 
Which moves this way and that its hundred 

legs,f 
Were it a toy of mere mechanic craft, 
It were an infinitely curious thing ! 
But it has life, Osorio ! life and thought ; % 
And by the power of its miraculous will 
Wields all the complex movements of its frame 
Unerringly, to pleasurable ends ! 
Saw I that insect on this goblet's brink, 
I would remove it§ with an eager terror. 

OSORIO. 

What meanest thou ? 

* Here the speech of Osorio (Ordonio) ends in Remorse. 

f its hundred limhs. — Remorse. 

% But it has life, Ordonio ! life, enjoyment ! — lb. 

§ The remaining words of Albert's speech are omitted in 
Remorse. 



148 osorio : 

ALBERT. 

There's poison in the wine. 

OSORIO. 

Thou hast guess'd well. There's poison in the 

wine. 
Shall we throw dice, which of us two shall drink 

it?* 
For one of us must die ! 

ALBERT. 

Whom dost thou think me ? 

OSOEIO. 

The accomplice and sworn friend of Ferdinand. 

ALBERT. 

Ferdinand ! Ferdinand ! 'tis a name I know not.f 

* Thou hast guess'd right ; there's poison in the wine. 
There's poison in't — which of us two shall drink it ? — 

'Remorse. 

f In the published Remorse this speech of Albert (Alvar) is 
somewhat amplified : — 

" I know him not. 
And yet, methinks, I have heard the name but lately. 
Means he the husband of the Moorish woman ?" 



A TRAGEDY. 149 

OSORIO. 

Good ! good ! that lie ! by Heaven ! it has restored 

Die. 
Now I am thy master ! Villain, thou shalt drink it, 
Or die a bitterer death. 

ALBERT. 

What strange solution 
Hast thou found out to satisfy thy fears, 
And drug them to uunatural sleep ? 

[Albert takes the goblet, and with a sigh throws 
it on the ground."] 

My master ! 

OSORIO. 

Thou mountebank ! 

albert. 

Mountebank and villain ! 

What then art thou? For shame, put up thy 
sword ! 

What boots a weapon in a wither' d arm ? 

I fix DiiDe eye upon thee, and thou tremblest ! 

I speak — and fear and wonder crush thy rage, 

And turn it to a motionless distraction ! 

Thou blind self- worshipper ! thy pride, thy cun- 
ning, 



150 OSORIO : 

Thy faith in universal villainy, 
Thy shallow sophisms, thy pretended scorn 
For all thy human brethren — out upon them ! 
What have they done for thee ? Have they given 

thee peace ? 
Cured thee of starting in thy sleep ? or made 
The darkness pleasanty when thou wakest at mid- 
night ? 
Art happy when alone ? canst walk by thyself 
With even step, and quiet cheerfulness ? 
Yet, yet thou mayst be saved. 

osorio [stupidly reiterating the word]* 
Saved? saved? 

ALBERT. 

One pang — 
Could I call up one pang of true remorse ! 

OSORIO. 

He told me of the babe, that prattled to him, 
His fatherless little ones ! Eemorse ! remorse ! 
Where gott'st thou that fool's word ? Curse on 

remorse ! 
Can it give up the dead, or recompact 

# vacantly repeating the words. — Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 151 

A mangled body — mangled, dash'd to atoms ! 
Not all the blessings of an host of angels 
Can blow away a desolate widow's curse ; 
And tho' thou spill thy heart's blood for atonement, 
It will not weigh against an orphan's tear. 

albeet [almost overcome by Ms feelings']. 
But Albert 

OSORIO. 

Ha ! it chokes thee in the throat, 
Even thee ! and yet, I pray thee, speak it out. 
Still Albert ! Albert ! Howl it in mine ear ! 
Heap it, like coals of fire, upon my heart ! 
And shoot it hissing through my brain ! 

ALBERT. 

Alas — 
That day, when thou didst leap from off the rock 
Into the waves, and grasp'd thy sinking brother, 
And bore him to the strand, then, son of Velez ! 
How sweet and musical the name of Albert ! 
Then, then, Osorio ! he was dear to thee, 
And thou wert dear to him. Heaven only knows 
How very dear thou wert ! Why didst thou hate 

him? 
Heaven ! how he would fall upon thy neck, 
And weep forgiveness ! 



152 osoeio : 

OSORIO. 

Spirit of the dead ! 
Methinks I know thee! Ha! — my brain turns 

wild 
At its own dreams — off — off, fantastic shadow ! 

Albert [seizing his hand]. 
I fain would tell thee what I am, but dare not ! 

osoeio [retiring from him~\. 

Cheat, villain, traitor ! whatsoe'er thou be 
I fear thee, man !* 

[He starts, and stands in the attitude of listening.] 
And is this too my madness ? 

ALBERT. 

It is the step of one that treads in fear 
Seeking to cheat the echo. 

* The stage direction and five speeches that follow are 
omitted in Remorse, where after the above speech of Ordonio 
(Osorio), Teresa enters: — 

" Ter. {rushing out and falling on Alyae's neck.) 
Ordonio, 'tis thy brother ! 

[Oedonio with frantic wildness runs upon Alvae with 
his sword. Tebesa flings herself on Oedonio and arrests 
his arm.] 

Stop, madman, stop I" 



A TRAGEDY. 153 



OSORIO. 



It approaches — 
This nook shall hide me. 
[Maria enter s from a plank which slips to and fro.] 

MARIA. 

I have put aside 
The customs and the terrors of a woman, 
To work out thy escape. Stranger ! begone, 
And only tell me what thou know'st of Albert. 

[Albert takes her portrait from his neck, and 
gives it her with unutterable tenderness.'] 

ALBERT. 

Maria ! my Maria ! 

MARIA. 

Do not mock me. 
This is my face — and thou — ha ! who art thou ? 
Nay, I will call thee Albert ! 

[She falls upon his neck. Osorio leaps out from 
the nook with frantic wildness, and rushes towards 
Albert with his sword. Maria gazes at him, as 
one helpless with terror, then leaves Albert, and 
flings herself upon Osorio, arresting his arm.] 



154 OSORIO: 

MARIA. 

Madman, stop ! 
albert [with majesty and tenderness]. 

Does then this thin disguise impenetrably 
Hide Albert from thee ? Toil and painful wounds, 
And long imprisonment in unwholesome dungeons, 
Have marr'd perhaps all trace and lineament 
Of what I was ! But chiefly, chiefly, brother ! 
My anguish for thy guilt. Spotless Maria, 
I thought thee guilty too !* Osorio, brother ! 
Nay, nay, thou shalt embrace me ! 

osorio [drawing hack and gazing at albert with a 
countenance expressive at once of awe and terror.'] 

Touch me not ! 
Touch not pollution, Albert ! — I will die ! 

[He attempts to fall on his sword. Albert and 
Maria struggle with him.] 

ALBERT. 

We will invent some tale to save your honour. 
Live, live, Osorio !f 

* The words addressed to Maria are omitted in Remorse. 
f We will find means to save your honour, live ! 

Oh live, Ordonio, for our father's sake ! 

Spare his grey hairs ! — Remorse. 



A TRAGEDY. 155 

MARIA. 

You may yet be happy. 

osorio [looking at maria]. 

O horror ! Not a thousand years in heaven 

Could recompose this miserable heart, 

Or make it capable of one brief joy. 

Live ! live ! — why yes ! 'Twere well to live with 

you— 
For is it fit a villain should be proud ? 
My brother ! I will kneel to you, my brother ! 

[Throws himself at Albert's feet. 
Forgive me, Albert ! — Curse me with forgiveness ! 

ALBERT. 

Call back thy soul, my brother ! and look round 

thee. 
Now is the time for greatness. Think that 

Heaven 

MARIA. 

O mark his eye ! he hears not what you say. 

osorio [pointing at vacancy^. 

Yes, mark his eye ! there's fascination in it. 
Thou said'st thou didst not know him. That is he ! 
He comes upon me ! 



156 OSORIO : 

albert [lifting his eye to heaven']. 
Heal, lieal him, Heaven ! 

OSOEIO. 

Nearer and nearer ! And I cannot stir ! 

Will no one hear these stifled groans, and wake 

me? 
He would have died to save me, and I kill'd him — 
A husband and a father ! 

MARIA. 

Some secret poison 
Drinks up his spirit ! 

osorio [fiercely recollecting himself]. 

Let the eternal Justice 
Prepare my punishment in the obscure world. 
I will not bear to live — to live ! agony ! 
And be myself alone, my own sore torment ! 

[The doors of the dungeon are hurst open with a 
crash. Alhadra, Maurice, and the hand of 

Morescoes enter.] 

alhadra [pointing at Osorio]. 

Seize first that man ! 

[The Moors press round. 



A TRAGEDY. 157 

albert [rushing in among them]. 

Draw thy sword, Maurice ! and defend my brother. 
[A scuffle j during which they disarm Maurice.* 

OSORIO. 

Off, ruffians ! I have flung away my sword. 
Woman, my life is thine ! to thee I give it. 
Off! he that touches me with his hand of flesh, 
I'll rend his limbs asunder ! I have strength 
With this bare arm to scatter you like ashes ! 

ALHADRA. 

My husband 

OSORIO. 

Yes ! I murder'd him most foully. 

albert [throws himself on the earth~] . 
O horrible !f 

ALHADRA. 

Why didst thou leave his children ? 
Demon ! thou shouldst have sent thy dogs of hell 
To lap their blood. Then, then, I might have 
harden' d 

* Omitted in Remorse, as is the name of Maurice among 
the persons who enter. 

f This exclamation of Albert is omitted in Remorse. 



158 osorio : 

My soul in misery, and have had comfort. 
I would have stood far off, quiet tho' dark, 
And bade the race of men raise up a mourning 
For the deep horror of a desolation 
Too great to be one soul's particular lot ! 
Brother of Zagri ! let me lean upon thee. 

[Struggling to suppress her anguish. 
The time is not yet come for woman's anguish — 
I have not seen his blood. Within an hour 
Those little ones will crowd around and ask me, 
Where is our father ? 

[Looks at Osorio. 
I shall curse thee then ! 
Wert thou in heaven, my curse would pluck thee 
thence. 

MARIA. 

See — see ! he doth repent. I kneel to thee. 
Be merciful ! 

[Maria kneels to her. Alhadra regards her 
face wistfully^] 

ALHADRA. 

Thou art young and innocent ; 
'Twere merciful to kill thee ! Yet I will not. 
And for thy sake none of this house shall perish, 
Save only he. 



A TRAGEDY. 159 

MARIA. 

That aged man, his father !* 

alhadra [sternly']. 

Why had he such a son ? 

[The Moors press on. 

maria [still kneeling, and wild with affright] . 

Yet spare his life ! 
They must not murder him ! 

ALHADRA. 

And is it then 
An enviable lot to waste away 
With inward wounds, and like the spirit of chaos 
To wander on disquietly thro' the earth, 
Cursing all lovely things ? to let him live — 
It were a deep revenge ! 

[All the hand cry out] — 

No mercy ! no mercy ! 
[Naomi advances with the sword towards Osorio.] 

* In the published Remorse the appeal of Maria (Teresa) 
is uninterrupted, thus : — 

" He doth repent! See, see, I kneel to thee ! 
let hiin live ! That aged man, his father 



160 OSOEIO : 

ALHADEA. 

Nay, bear him forth ! Why should this innocent 

maid 
Behold the ugliness of death ? 

osoeio [with great majesty'] . 
O woman !* 
I have stood silent like a slave before thee, 
That I might taste the wormwood and the gall, 
And satiate this self-accusing spirit 
With bitterer agonies than death can give.f 

X [The Moors gather round him in a crowd, and 
pass off the stage."] 

* The preceding part is entirely different in the published 
Remorse, where it stands thus : — 

" Alhad. (sternly.) Why had he such a son ? 

(Shouts from the distance of, Rescue ! Rescue! Alvae! 
Alvae ! and the voice of Valdez heard.) 

Alhad. Rescue ? — and Isidore's spirit unrevenged ? 

The deed be mine ! 

(Suddenly stabs Obdonio.) 
Now take my life ! 
Ord. (with great majesty.) 
'Tis well thou hast aveng'd thyself. woman \" 

f The following line is added in Remorse: — 
" Forgive me, Alvar ! Oh, couldst thou forget me ! 

[Dies." 

X The conclusion of the published Remorse is entirely 

different to this. The speech of Alhadra disappears, and 



A TRAGEDY. 161 

ALHADEA. 

I thank thee, Heaven ! thou hast ordain'd it wisely, 
That still extremes bring their own cure. That point 

Alvar winds up with some grandiloquent maxims and senti- 
ments in the old-fashioned conventional rhymed couplets : — 

" Alv. (while with Teeesa supporting Ordonio.) 
Arm of avenging Heaven ! 

Thou hast snatch'd from me my most cherish'd hope — 
But go ! my word is pledged to thee. Away ! 
Brave not my father's vengeance ! 

{The Moors hurry off Alhadra. The stage fills 
with armed peasants and servants, Zulimez and 
Valdez at their head. Valdez rushes into 
Altar's arms.'] 
Alv. Turn not thy face that way, my father ! hide, 
Oh hide it from his eye ! Oh let thy joy 
Flow in unmingled stream through thy first Messing. 

(Both kneel to Valdez.) 
Void. My Son ! My Alvar ! hless, Oh bless him, heaven ! 
Ter. Me too, my father ? 
Void. Bless, oh bless my children ! 

(both rise) 
Alv. Delights so full, if unalloy'd with grief, 

Were ominous. In these strange dread events, 
Just Heaven instructs us with an awful voice, 
That Conscience rules us e'en against our choice. 
Our inward Monitress to guide or warn, 
If listen'd to ; but if repell'd with scorn, 
At length as dire Remoese, she reappears, 
Works in our guilty hopes, and selfish fears ! 
Still bids, Remember ! and still cries, Too late ! 
And while she scares us, goads us to our fate !" 

M 



162 osoeio. 

In misery, which makes the oppressed man 

Regardless of his own life, makes him too 

Lord of the oppressor's. Knew I an hundred men 

Despairing, but not palsied by despair. 

This arm should shake the kingdoms of the world ; 

The deep foundations of iniquity 

Should sink away, earth groaning from beneath 

them ; 
The strongholds of the cruel men should fall, 
Their temples and their mountainous towers 

should fall ; 
Till desolation seemed a beautiful thing, 
And all that wore and had the spirit of life 
Sang a new song to him who had gone forth 
Conquering and still to conquer ! 



THE END., 



APPENDIX 









APPENDIX. 



PREFACE 

TO THE FIRST EDITION OF "REMORSE" (1813).* 

This Tragedy was written in the summer and 
autumn of the year 1797 ; at Nether Stowey, in 
the county of Somerset. By whose recommenda- 
tion, and of the manner in which both the Play 
and the Author were treated by the recom- 
mender, let me be permitted to relate: that I 
knew of its having been received only by a third 
person ; that I could procure neither answer nor 
the manuscript ; and that but for an accident I 
should have had no copy of the work itself. 
That such treatment would damp a young man's 
exertions may be easily conceived : there was no 

* Remorse. A Tragedy in Five Acts. By S. T. Coleridge. 
London : Printed for W. Pople, 67, Chancery Lane. 1813. 



166 coleridge's preface to 

need of after-misrepresentation and calumny, as 
an additional sedative. 

* As an amusing anecdote, and in the wish to 
prepare future Authors, as young as I then was 
and as ignorant of the world, of the treatment 
they may meet with, I will add, that the person 
who by a twice conveyed recommendation (in the 
year 1797) had urged me to write a Tragedy : 
who on my own objection that I was utterly 
ignorant of all stage -tactics had promised that 
he would himself make the necessary alterations, 
if the piece should be at all representable ; who 
together with the copy of the play (hastened by 
his means so as to prevent the full developmentf 
of the characters) received a letter from the 
Author to this purport, " that conscious of his 
inexperience, he had cherished no expectations, and 
should therefore feel no disappointment from the 
rejection of the play ; hut that if beyond his hopes 

jjf r# found in it any capability of being 

adapted to the stage, it was delivered to him as if it 

* The whole of this paragraph of the Preface was omitted 
in the later editions of Remorse. — Ed. 

f I need not say to authors, that as to the essentials of a 
poem, little can be superinduced without dissonance, after 
the first warmth of conception and composition. 



THE TRAGEDY OF REMORSE. 167 

had been his own manuscript, to add, omit, or alter, 
as he saw occasion ; and that (if it were rejected) 
the Author would deem himself amply remunerated 
by the addition to his experience which he should 

receive, if Mr. would point out to him the 

nature of its unfitness for public representation ;" — 
that this very person returned me no answer, 
and, spite of repeated applications, retained my 
manuscript when I was not conscious of any 
other copy being in existence (my duplicate 
having been destroyed by an accident) ; that he 
suffered this manuscript to wander about the 
town from his house, so that but ten days ago 
I saw the song in the third Act printed and set to 
music, without my name, by Mr. Carnaby, in the 
year 1802 ; likewise that the same person asserted 
(as I have been assured) that the play was rejected, 
because I would not submit to the alteration 
of one ludicrous line; and finally in the year 
1806 amused and delighted (as who was ever in 
his company, if I may trust the universal report, 
without being amused and delighted ?) a large 
company at the house of a highly respectable 
Member of Parliament, with the ridicule of the 
Tragedy, as " a fair specimen" of the whole of 
which he adduced a line : 



168 colekidge's preface to 

" Drip ! drip ! drip ! there's nothing here but dripping" 

In the original copy of the Play, in the first 
Scene of the fourth Act, Isidore had commenced 
his Soliloquy in the Cavern with the words : 

" Drip ! drip ! a ceaseless sound of water-drops" 

as far as I can at present recollect : for on the 
possible ludicrous association being pointed out 
to me, I instantly and thankfully struck out the 
line. And as to my obstinate tenacity, not only my 
old acquaintance, but (I dare boldy aver) both 
the Managers of Drury-Lane Theatre, and every 
actor and actress, whom I have recently met in 
the G-reen-room, will repel the accusation: per- 
haps not without surprise. 

I thought it right to record these circum- 
stances ; but I turn gladly and with sincere grati- 
tude to the converse. In the close of last year 
I was advised to present the Tragedy once more 
to the Theatre. Accordingly having altered the 
names, I ventured to address a letter to Mr. 
Whitbread, requesting information as to whom I 
was to present my Tragedy. My letter was 
instantly and most kindly answered, and I have 
now nothing to tell but a tale of thanks. I 
should scarce know where to begin, if the good- 



THE TRAGEDY OP REMORSE. 169 

ness of the Manager, Mr. Arnold, had not called 
for my first acknowledgements. Not merely as 
an acting Play, bnt as a dramatic Poem, the 
Remorse has been importantly and manifoldly 
benefited by his suggestions. I can with severest 
truth say, that every hint he gave me was the 
ground of some improvement. In the next place 
it is my duty to mention Mr. Raymond, the Stage 
Manager. Had the " Remorse" been his own 
Play — nay, that is saying too little — had I been 
his brother, or his dearest friend, he could not 
have felt or exerted himself more zealously. 

As the Piece is now acting, it may be thought 
presumptuous in me to speak of the Actors : yet 
how can I abstain, feeling, as I do, Mrs. Glover's 
powerful assistance, and knowing the circum- 
stances under which she consented to act 
Alhadra ? A time will come, when without pain- 
fully oppressing her feelings, I may speak of this 
more fully. To Miss Smith I have an equal, 
though different acknowledgement to make, 
namely, for her acceptance of a character not 
fully developed, and quite inadequate to her 
extraordinary powers. She enlivened and sup- 
ported many passages, which (though not perhaps, 
wholly uninteresting in the closet) would but for 



170 

her have hung heavy on the ears of a theatrical 
audience. And in speaking the Epilogue, a 
composition which (I fear) my hurry will hardly 
excuse, and which, as unworthy of her name, is 
here omitted,* she made a sacrifice, which only 
her established character with all judges of 
tragic action, could have rendered compatible 
with her duty to herself. To Mr. De Camp's 
judgment and full conception of Isidore ; to Mr. 
Pope's accurate representation of the partial, yet 
honourable Father; to Mr. Elliston's energy in 
the character of Alvar, and who in more than one 
instance gave it beauties and striking points, 
which not only delighted but surprised me ; and 
to Mr. Eae, to whose zeal and unwearied study 
of his part I am not less indebted as a man, 
than to his impassioned realization of Okdonio, 

as an author ; to these, and to all concerned 

with the bringing out of the Play, I can address 
but one word — Thanks ! — but that word is 
uttered sincerely ! and to persons constantly be- 
fore the eye of the public, a public acknowledg- 
ment becomes appropriate, and a duty. 

* This suppressed Epilogue has been disinterred from the 
columns of the Morning Chronicle, and is now printed here 
(see page 202). — Ed. 



THE TRAGEDY OF REMORSE. 171 

I defer all answers to the different criticisms on 
the Piece to an Essay, which I am about to 
publish immediately, on Dramatic Poetry, rela- 
tively to the present state of the Metropolitan 
Theatres.* 

From the necessity of hastening the publication 
I was obliged to send the manuscript intended 
for the Stage: which is the sole cause of the 
number of directions printed in italics. 



S. T. Coleridge, 



* This is one of the many projects announced by Cole- 
ridge, which through his habitual and growing indolence and 
irresolution, never came to any maturity. — Ed. 



172 
PBOLOGUE 

TO THE TRAGEDY OP "REMORSE,' 

BY C. LAMB* 

Spoken by Mr. Carr, 



There are, I am told, who sharply criticise 
Our modern theatres* unwieldy size. 
We players shall scarce plead guilty to that charge, 
Who think a house can never be too large : 
Grieved when a rant, that's worth a nation's ear, 
Shakes some prescribed Lyceum's petty sphere ; 
And pleased to mark the grin from space to space 
Spread epidemic o'er a town's broad face. — 
O might old Betterton or Booth return 
To view our structures from their silent urn, 
Could Quin come stalking from Elysian glades, 
Or G-arrick get a day-rule from the shades — 

* I am unable to discover that this Prologue has been in- 
cluded in any collection of the writings of Charles Lamb ; 
it seems to have escaped the notice of the most diligent 
collectors of Mliana. — -Ed. 



PROLOGUE TO " REMORSE." 173 

Where now, perhaps, in mirth, which Spirits 

approve, 
He imitates the ways of men above, 
And apes the actions of onr upper coast, 
As in his days of flesh he play'd the ghost : — 
How might they bless our ampler scope to please, 
And hate their own old shrunk-up audiences. — 
Their houses yet were palaces to those, 
Which Ben and Fletcher for their triumphs chose, 
Shakespeare, who wish'd a kingdom for a stage, 
Like giant pent in disproportion^ cage, 
Mourn'd his contracted strength and crippled 

rage. 
He who could tame his vast ambition down 
To please some scatter' d gleanings of a town, 
And, if some hundred auditors supplied 
Their meagre meed of claps, was satisfied, 
How had he felt, when that dread curse of Lear's 
Had burst tremendous on a thousand ears, 
While deep-struck wonder from applauding bands 
Eeturn'd the tribute of as many hands ! 
Eude were his guests ; he never made his bow 
To such an audience as salutes us now. 
He lack'd the balm of labour, female praise. 
Few Ladies in his time frequented plays, 



174 PROLOGUE TO "REMORSE." 

Or came to see a youth with awkward art 

And shrill sharp pipe burlesque the woman's part. 

The very use, since so essential grown, 

Of painted scenes, was to his stage unknown. 

The air-blest castle, round whose wholesome crest, 

The martlet, guest of summer, chose her nest— 

The forest walks of Arden's fair domain, 

Where Jaques fed his solitary vein, — 

No pencil's aid as yet had dared supply, 

Seen only by the intellectual eye. 

Those scenic helps, denied to Shakespeare's page, 

Our Author owes to a more liberal age. 

Nor pomp nor circumstance are wanting here ; 

'Tis for himself alone that he must fear. 

Yet shall remembrance cherish the just pride, 

That (be the laurel granted or denied) 

He first essay'd in this distinguish'd fane, 

Severer muses and a tragic strain. 



175 



Note to Page 1. 

The following is the opening scene added in 
the published Remorse : — 

Time. The reign of Philip II., just at the close of 
the civil wars against the Moors, and during the 
heat of the persecution which raged against them, 
shortly after the edict which forbade the wearing 
of Moresco apparel under pain of death. 

ACT I. 

SCENE I. 

The Sea Shore on the Coast of Granada. 

Don Alvae, wrapt in a Boat Qlodk, and Ztjlimez 
{a Moresco) both as just landed. 

Zul. No sound, no face of joy to welcome us ! 

Alv. My faithful Zulimez, for one brief moment 
Let me forget my anguish and their crimes. 
If aught on earth demand an unmix' d feeling, 
'Tis surely this — after long years of exile, 
To step forth on firm land, and gazing round us 
To hail at once our country, and our birth-place. 
Hail, Spain ! Granada, hail ! once more I press 
Thy sands with filial awe, land of my fathers ! 



176 ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 

Zul. Then claim your rights in it ! O, revered 
Don Alvar, 
Yet, yet give up your all too gentle purpose. 
It is too hazardous ! reveal yourself, 
And let the guilty meet the doom of guilt ! 

Alv. Remember, Zulimez ! I am his brother, 
Injured indeed ! O deeply injured ! yet 
Ordonio's brother. 

Zul. Nobly minded Alvar ! 

This sure but gives his guilt a blacker die. 

Alv. The more behoves it, I should rouse within 
him 
Remorse ! that I should save him from himself. 

Zul. Remorse is as the heart, in which it grows: 
If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews 
Of true repentance ; but if proud and gloomy, 
It is a poison-tree, that pierced to the inmost 
Weeps only tears of poison !* 

Alv. And of a brother, 

Dare I hold this, unproved ? nor make one effort 
To save him ? — Hear me, friend ! I have yet to 

tell thee, 
That this same life, which he conspired to take, 



* This speech of Zulimez stands as a motto on the title- 
page of the original edition. — Ed. 



ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 177 

Himself once rescued from the angry flood, 
And at the imminent hazard of his own. 
Add too my oath — 

Zul. You have thrice told already, 

The year of absence and of secrecy, 
To which a forced oath bound you : if in truth 
A suborn' d murderer have the power to dictate 
A binding oath — 

Ah. My long captivity 

Left me no choice : the very Wish too languish'd 
With the fond Hope, that nursed it ; the sick babe, 
Droop' d at the bosom of its famish'd mother. 
But (more than all) Teresa's perfidy ; 
The assassin's strong assurance, when no interest, 
No motive could have tempted him to falsehood ; 
In the first pangs of his awaken' d conscience, 
When with abhorrence of his own black purpose 
The murderous weapon, pointed at my breast, 
Fell from his palsied hand — 

Zul. Heavy presumption ! 

Alv. It weigh' d not with me — Hark! I will tell 
thee all. 
As we pass'd by, I bade thee mark the base 
Of yonder cliff — 

Zul. That rocky seat you mean 
Shaped by the billows ? — 



178 ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 

Alv. There Teresa met me 

The morning of the day of my departure. 
We were alone : the purple hue of dawn, 
Fell from the kindling east aslant upon us, 
And blending with the blushes on her cheek 
Suffused the tear-drops there with rosy light. 
There seem'd a glory round us, and Teresa 
The angel of the vision ! (tlien with agitation. 

Hadst thou seen, 
How in each motion her most innocent soul, 
Beam'd forth and brightened, thou thyself wouldst 

tell me, 
Guilt is a thing impossible in her ! 
She must be innocent ! 

Zul. (with a sigh) Proceed, my Lord ! 

Alv. A portrait which she had procured by 
stealth, 
(For even then it seems her heart foreboded 
Or knew Ordonio's moody rivalry) 
A portrait of herself with thrilling hand 
She tied around my neck, conjuring me 
With earnest prayers, that I would keep it sacred 
To my own knowledge : nor did she desist, 
Till she had won a solemn promise from me, 
That (save my own) no eye should e'er behold it 
Till my return. Yet this the assassin knew, 



ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 179 

Knew that which none but she could have dis- 
closed. 
Zul. A damning proof ! 

Ah. My own life wearied me ! 

And but for the imperative voice within 
With mine own hand I had thrown off the burthen. 
That voice, which quell' d me, calm'd me, and I 

sought 
The Belgic states ; there join'd the better cause ; 
And there too fought as one that courted death ! 
Wounded, I fell among the dead and dying, 
In death-like trance : a long imprisonment fol- 
low' d. 
The fulness of my anguish by degrees 
Waned to a meditative melancholy ; 
And still the more I mused, my soul became 
More doubtful, more perplex'd : and still Teresa — 
Night after night, she visited my sleep, 
Now as a saintly sufferer, wan and tearful, 
Now as a saint in glory beckoning to me ! 
And still as in contempt of proof and reason, 
I cherish the fond faith that she is guiltless. 
Hear then my fix'd resolve: I'll linger here 
In the disguise of a Moresco chieftain. — 
The Moorish robes ? — 

Zul. All, all are in the sea-cave, 



180 ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 

Some furlong hence. I bade our mariners 
Secrete the boat there. 

Alv. Above all, the picture 

Of the assassination — 

Zul. Be assured 

That it remains uninjured. 

Alv. Thus disguised 

I will first seek to meet Ordonio's — wife! 
If possible, alone too. This was her wonted walk, 
And this the hour ; her words, her very looks 
Will acquit her or convict. 

Zul. Will they not know you ? 

Alv. With your aid, friend, I shall unfearingly 
Trust the disguise ; and as to my complexion, 
My long imprisonment, the scanty food, 
This scar, — and toil beneath a burning sun, 
Have done already half the business for us. 
Add too my youth, when last we saw each other. 
Manhood has swoln my chest, and taught my voice 
A hoarser note — Besides, they think me dead : 
And what the mind believes impossible, 
The bodily sense is slow to recognise. 

Zul. 'Tis yours, sir, to command, mine to obey. 
Now to the cave beneath the vaulted rock, 
Where having shaped you to a Moorish chieftain, 
I will seek our mariners ; and in the dusk 



ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 181 

Transport whate'er we need to the small dell 
In the Alpuxarras — there where Zagri lived. 

Alv. I know it well : it is the obscurest haunt 
Of all the mountains — (both stand listening. 

Voices at a distance ! 
Let us away ! [Exeunt. 

Page 3. 

(As once I knew a crazy Moorish maid, &c.) 

In the third edition of Remorse the following 
footnote is appended to this passage : — " [Here 
Valdez bends back, and smiles at her wildness, 
which Teresa noticing, checks her enthusiasm, 
and in a soothing, half-playful tone and manner 
apologises for her fancy by the little tale in the 
parenthesis.] " 

Note to the words "you are a painter," p. 51. 
(Act II. Scene II.) 

The following lines I have preserved in this 
place not so much as explanatory of the picture 
of the assassination, as (if I may say so, without 
disrespect to the public) to gratify my own feel- 
ings, the passage being no mere fancy portrait ; 
but a slight, yet not unfaithful, profile of one who 



182 ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 

still lives, nobilitate felix, arte clarior, vita colendis- 
simus* 

Zul. (speaking of Alvar in the third person.) 
Such was the noble Spaniard's own relation. 
He told me, too, how in his early youth, 
And his first travels, 'twas his choice or chance 
To make long sojourn in sea- wedded Venice ; 
There won the love of that divine old man, 
Courted by mightiest kings, the famous Titian ! 
Who, like a second and more lovely Nature, 
By the sweet mystery of lines and colours, 
Changed the blank canvas to a magic mirror, 
That made the Absent present ; and to Shadows 
G;ave light, depth, substance, bloom, yea, thought 

and motion. 
He loved the old man, and revered his art : 
And though of noblest birth and ample fortune, 
The young enthusiast thought it no scorn 
But his inalienable ornament, 



* In later editions, after the death of the person alluded 
to, these prefatory observations were thus altered : — " The 
following lines I have preserved in this place, not so much as 
explanatory of the picture of the assassination, as to gratify 
my own feelings, the passage being no mere fancy portrait ; 
but a slight yet not unfaithful profile of the late Sir George 
Beaumont." 



ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 183 

To be his pupil, and with filial zeal 
By practice to appropriate the sage lessons, 
Which the gay, smiling old man gladly gave. 
The Art, he honour'd thus, requited him : 
And in the following and calamitous years 
Beguiled the hours of his captivity. 

AThad. And then he framed this picture ? and 
unaided 
By arts unlawful, spell, or talisman ? 

Alv. A potent spell, a mighty talisman ! 
The imperishable memory of the dead, 
Sustain'd by love, and grief, and indignation ! 
So vivid were the forms within his brain, 
His very eyes, when shut, made pictures of them !* 

Note to Page 75. 

Bemorse. Act III. 

[The following is entirely different to the close 
of the third Act of Osorio. See p. 75 supra : — "] 

Wandering Demons ! hear the spell ! 
Lest a blacker charm compel — 

* Printed in the Appendix to the third edition of Remorse 
(1813). 



184 ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 

[The incense on the altar takes fire suddenly, 
and an illuminated picture of Alvar's 
assassination is discovered, and having 
remained a few seconds is then hidden by 
ascending flames.'] 

Ord. [starting in great agitation.) 
Duped ! duped ! duped ! the traitor Isidore ! 

[At this instant the doors are forced open, 
Monviedro and the Familiars of the 
Inquisition, servants, &c, enter and fill 
the stage.] 

Mon. First seize the sorcerer ! suffer him not 
to speak ! 
The holy judges of the Inquisition 
Shall hear his first words. Look you pale, Lord 

Valdez ? 
Plain evidence have we here of most foul sorcery. 
There is a dungeon underneath this castle, 
And as you hope for mild interpretation, 
Surrender instantly the keys and charge of it. 
Ord. (recovering himself as from stupor, to the 
servants.) 
Why haste you not ? Off with him to the dungeon ! 

[All rush out in tumult. 



ADDITIONS IN " KEMORSE." 185 

Scene II. 

Interior of a Chapel, with painted windows. 

Enter Teresa. 

When first I enter'd this pure spot, forebodings 
Press'd heavy on my heart : but as I knelt, 
Such calm unwonted bliss possess'd my spirit, 
A trance so cloudless, that those sounds, hard by, 
Of trampling uproar, fell upon mine ear 
As alien and unnoticed as the rain-storm 
Beats on the roof of some fair banquet-room, 
While sweetest melodies are warbling 

Enter Valdez. 

Vald. Ye pitying saints, forgive a father's 
blindness, 
And extricate us from this net of peril ! 

Ter. Who wakes anew my fears, and speaks of 
peril? 

Vald. best Teresa, wisely wert thou prompted ! 
This was no feat of mortal agency ! 
That picture — Oh, that picture tells me all ! 
With a flash of light it came, in flames it vanish'd, 
Self-kindled, self-consumed : bright as thy life, 
Sudden and unexpected as thy fate, 
Alvar ! My son! My son ! — The Inquisitor — 



186 ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 

Ter. Torture me not ! But Alvar — Oh of Alvar! 
Vald. How often wouldst thou plead* for these 
Morescoes ! 
The brood accursed! remorseless, coward mur- 
derers ! 
Ter. (wildly.) 

So ? so ? — I comprehend you — He is 

Void, (with averted countenance.) 

He is no more ! 
Ter. O sorrow! that a Father's voice should 
say this, 
A Father's heart believe it ! 

Void. And how painful 

Are Fancy's wild hopesf to a heart despairing ! 
Ter. These rays that slant in from those gor- 
geous windows, 
From yon bright orb — tho' colour'd as they pass, 
Are they not Light ? — Even so that voice, Lord 

Valdez ! 
Which whispers to my soul, tho' haply varied 
By many a fancy, many a wishful hope, 
Speaks yet the truth : and Alvar lives for me ! 

* How often would he plead. — Third Edition. 

f A worse sorrow 
Are Fancy's wild hopes, &c. — Third Edition. 



ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 187 

Void. Yes, for three wasting years, thus and 
no other, 
He has lived for thee — a spirit for thy spirit ! 
My child, we must not give religious faith 
To every voice which makes the heart a listener 
To its own wish. 

Ter. I breathed to the Unerring 

Permitted prayers. Mustthose remain unanswer'd, 
Yet impious Sorcery, that holds no commune 
Save with the lying spirit, claim belief? 

Vald. O not to-day, not now for the first time 
Was Alvar lost to thee — 

(turning off, aloud, but yet as to himself. 
Accursed assassins ! 
Disarm'd, o'erpower'd, despairing of defence, 
At his bared breast he seem'd to grasp some relic 

More dear than was his life 

Ter. (with faint shriek.) 

O Heavens ! my portrait ! 
He grasp' d it in his death-pang !* 

Off, false Demon, 
That beat'st thy black wings close above my head ! 
[Ordonio enters with the keys of the dungeon 
in his hand.'] 

* And lie did grasp it in his death-pang ! — Third Edition. 



188 ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 

Hush! who comes here? The wizard Moor's 

employer ! 
Moors were his murderers, you say ? Saints shield 
us 

From wicked thoughts 

[Valdez moves toward the back of the stage 
to meet Ordonio, and during the con- 
cluding lines of Teresa's speech appears 
as eagerly conversing with him.'] 

Is Alvar dead ? what then ? 
The nuptial- rites and funeral shall be one. 
Here's no abiding-place for thee, Teresa. — 
Away ! they see me not — Thou seest me, Alvar ! 
To thee I bend my course. — But first one 

question, 
One question to Ordonio. — My limbs tremble — 
There I may sit unmark'd — a moment will restore 
me. (retires out of sight. 

Ord. (as he advances with Valdez.) 
Those are the dungeon keys. Monviedro knew 

not, 
That I too had received the wizard's message, 
" He that can bring the dead to life again." 
But now he is satisfied, I plann'd this scheme 
To work a full conviction on the culprit, 
And he entrusts him wholly to my keeping. 



ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 189 

Void. 'Tis well, my son! But have you yet 
discover' d 
(Where is Teresa ?) what those speeches meant — 
Pride, and hypocrisy, and guilt, and cunning ? 
Then when the wizard fix'd his eye on you, 
And you, I know not why, look'd pale and trem- 
bled— 
Why — why, what ails you now ? — 

Ord. (confused.) Me ? what ails me ? 

A pricking of the blood — It might have happen'd 
At any other time. — Why scan you me ? 

Vald. His speech about the corse, and stabs, 
and murderers, 
Bore reference to the assassins 

Ord. Duped! duped! duped! 

The traitor, Isidore ! (a pause, then wildly. 

I tell thee, my dear father ! 
I am most glad of this. 

Vald. (confused.) True — Sorcery 

Merits its doom ; and this perchance may guide us 
To the discovery of the murderers. 
I have their statures and their several faces 
So present to me, that but once to meet them 
Would be to recognize. 

Ord. Yes ! yes ! we recognize them I 

I was benumb' d, and stagger' d up and down 



190 ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 

Thro' darkness without light — dark — dark — dark ! 

My flesh crept chill, my limbs felt manacled, 

As had a snake coil'd round them! — Now 'tis 

sunshine, 
And the blood dances freely thro' its channels ! 

[Turns off abruptly : then to himself. 
This is my virtuous, grateful Isidore ! 

[then mimicking Isidore's manner and voice — 
" A common trick of gratitude, my lord !" 
Old Gratitude ! a dagger would dissect 
His " own full heart" — 'twere good to see its 

colour. 
Void. These magic sights ! O that I ne'er had 

yielded 
To your entreaties ! Neither had I yielded, 
But that in spite of your own seeming faith 
I held it for some innocent stratagem, 
Which Love had prompted, to remove the doubts 
Of wild Teresa — by fancies quelling fancies ! 

Ord. (in a slow voice, as reasoning to himself.) 
Love ! Love ! and then we hate ! and what ? and 

wherefore ? 
Hatred and Love ! Fancies opposed by fancies ! 
What ? if one reptile sting another reptile ! 
Where is the crime ? The goodly face of nature 
Hath one disfeaturing stain the less upon it. 



ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 191 

Are we not all predestined transiency, 

And cold dishonour ? Grant it, that this hand 

Had given a morsel to the hungry worms 

Somewhat too early — Where's the crime of this ? 

That this must needs bring on the idiocy 

Of moist-eyed penitence — 'tis like a dream ! 

Void. Wild talk, my son ! But thy excess of 

feeling (averting himself. 

Almost I fear, it hath unhinged his brain. 

Ord. (now in soliloquy, and now addressing his 
father: and just after the speech has com- 
menced, Teresa reappears and advances 
slowly.) 
Say, I had laid a body in the sun ! 
Well! in a month there swarm forth from the 

corse 
A thousand, nay, ten thousand sentient beings 
In place of that one man. — Say, I had hilVd him ! 
[Teresa starts, and stops listening. 
Yet who shall tell me, that each one and all 
Of these ten thousand lives is not as happy, 
As that one life, which being push'd aside, 

Made room for these unnumber'd 

Vald. O mere madness ! 

[Teresa moves hastily forwards, and places 
herself directly before Ordonio.] 



192 ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 

Ord. {Checking the feeling of surprise, and forcing 
his tones into an expression of playful 
courtesy.) 
Teresa ? or the phantom of Teresa ? 

Ter. Alas ! the phantom only, if in truth 
The substance of her being, her life's life, 
Have ta'en its flight thro' Alvar's death-wound — 

(a pause). Where — 

(Even coward Murder grants the dead a grave) 
O tell me, Yaldez ! — answer me, Ordonio ! 
Where lies the corse of my betrothed husband ? 
Ord. There, where Ordonio likewise would fain 
lie! 
In the sleep-compelling earth, in unpierced dark- 
ness! 
For while we live — 
An inward day, that never, never sets, 
Glares round the soul, and mocks the closing 

eyelids ! 
Over his rocky grave the Fir-grove sighs 
A lulling ceaseless dirge ! 'Tis well with him ! 

[Strides off in agitation towards the altar, 
but returns as Valdez is speaking.^ 

Ter. (recoiling with the expression appropriate to 
the passion.) 



ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 193 

The rock ! the fir-grove ! (To Yaldez) 

Didst thou hear him say it ? 
Hush ! I will ask him ! 

Void. Urge him not — not now ! 

This we beheld. Nor He nor I know more, 
Than what the magic imagery reveal' d. 

The assassin, who press'd foremost of the three 

Ord. A tender-hearted, scrupulous, grateful 
villain, 
Whom I will strangle ! 

Void, {looking with anxious disquiet at his Son, 
yet attempting to proceed with his description.) 

While his two companions 

Ord. Dead ! dead already ! what care we for 

the dead ? 
Vald. (To Teresa.) 
Pity him ! soothe him ! disenchant his spirit ! 
The^e supernatural shows, this strange disclosure, 
And his too fond affection, which still broods 
O'er Alvar's fate, and still burns to avenge it — 
These, struggling with his hopeless love for you, 
Distemper him, and give reality 
To the creatures of his fancy. 

Ord. Is it so ? 

Yes ! yes ! even like a child, that too abruptly 
Eoused by a glare of light from deepest sleep 



194 ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 

Starts up bewilder'd, and talks idly. 
(Then mysteriously.) Father ! 

What if the Moors that made my brother's grave, 
Even now were digging ours ! What if the bolt, 
Though aim'd, I doubt not, at the son of Valdez, 
Yet miss'd its true aim when it fell on Alvar ? 

Vald. Alvar ne'er fought against the Moors, — 
say rather, 
He was their advocate ; but you had march' d 
With fire and desolation through their villages. — 
Yet he by chance was captured. 

Orel. Unknown, perhaps, 

Captured, yet as the son of Valdez, murder'd. 
Leave all to me. Nay, whither, gentle Lady ? 

Void. What seek you now ? 

Ter. A better, surer light, 

To guide me 

Both. Whither? 

Ter. To the only place 

Where life yet dwells for me, and ease of heart. 
These walls seem threatening to fall in upon me ! 
Detain me not ! a dim power drives me hence, 
And that will be my guide. 

Vald. To find a lover ! 

Suits that a high-born maiden's modesty ? 
O folly and shame ! Tempt not my rage, Teresa ! 



ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 195 

Ter. Hopeless, I fear no human being's rage. 

And am I hastening to the arms Heaven ! 

I haste but to the grave of my beloved ! 

[Exit, Valdez following after her. 

Ord. This, then, is my reward! and must I 

love her ? 
Scorn'd, shudder'd at ! yet love her still ? yes ! 

yes! 
By the deep feelings of revenge and hate 
I will still love her — woo her — win her too ! 
(a pause.) Isidore safe and silent, and the portrait 
Found on the wizard — he, belike, self-poison' d 
To escape the crueller flames My soul shouts 

triumph ! 
The mine is undermined ! blood ! blood ! blood ! 
They thirst for thy blood ! thy blood, Ordonio ! 

(a pause.) 
The hunt is up ! and in the midnight wood 
With lights to dazzle and with nets they seek 
A timid prey : and lo ! the tiger's eye 
Glares in the red flame of his hunter's torch ! 

To Isidore I will despatch a message, 

And lure him to the cavern ! ay, that cavern ! 

He cannot fail to find it. Thither I'll lure him, 



196 ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 

Whence he shall never, never more return ! 

(Looks through the side window.) 
A rim of the sun lies yet upon the sea, 
And now 'tis gone ! All shall be done to-night. 

[Exit 
end op the third act. 

Note to Page 145. 

ActV. 

In the published Remorse, the Dungeon soliloquy 
of Alvar has some additional lines, and the follow- 
ing scene with Teresa is interpolated. Alvar 
continues : — 

I am chill and weary ! Ton rude bench of stone, 
In that dark angle, the sole resting-place ! 
But the self- approving mind is its own light, 
And life's best warmth still radiates from the 

heart, 
Where love sits brooding, and an honest purpose. 

(Retires out of sight. 
Enter Teresa with a taper. 
Ter. It has chill' d my very life-blood !* my own 
voice scares me ! 

* My very life.— Third Edition. 



ADDITION'S IN " REMORSE." 197 

Yet when I -near it not, I seem to lose 

The substance of my being — my strongest grasp 

Sends inwards but weak witness that I am. 

I seek to cheat the echo. — How the half sounds 

Blend with this strangled light ! Is he not here ? 

As in a dream I ask ; if it be a dream ?* 

(Looking round.) 
for one human face here — but to see 
One human face here to sustain me. — Courage ! 
It is but my own fear ! — The life within me, 
It sinks and wavers like this cone of flame, 
Beyond which I scarce dare to look ! (shudders. )f 
If I faint ? If this inhuman den should be 
At once my death-bed and my burial vault ? 
Ho ! (with a faint scream as Alvar emerges from 

the recess and moves hastily toward her.) 
Alv. (Rushes towards her, and catches her as she 

is falling.) 
gracious heaven ! it is, it is Teresa ! 
Shall I reveal myself? The sudden shock 
Of rapture will blow out this spark of life, 
And joy complete what terror has begun. 

* This line is omitted in the later editions of Remorse. 
f In the later editions of Remorse this line runs : — 
" Beyond which I scarce dare look onward ! Oh 

{shuddering)" 



198 ADDITIONS IN REMOHSE." 

ye impetuous beatings here, be still ! 
Teresa, best beloved ! pale, pale, and cold ! 
Her pulse doth nutter ! Teresa ! my Teresa ! 

Ter. (Recovering, looks round wildly.) 

1 beard a voice ; but often in my dreams 

I bear that voice ! and wake, and try — and try — 
To bear it waking ! but I never could — 
And 'tis so now — even so ! Well ! be is dead — 
Murder' d perhaps ! And I am faint, and feel 
As if it were no painful thing to die ! 

Alv. (eagerly.) 
Believe it not, sweet maid ! Believe it not, 
Beloved woman ! 'Twas a low imposture, 
Framed by a guilty wretch. 

Ter. (Retires from him, and feebly supports Tier- 
self against a pillar of the dungeon.) 
Ha ! Who art thou ? 

Alv. (exceedingly affected.) 
Suborn' d by his brother — 

Ter. Didst thou murder him ? 

And dost thou now repent ? Poor troubled 

man, 
I do forgive thee, and may Heaven forgive thee ! 

Alv. Ordonio — he — 

Ter. If thou didst murder him — 

His spirit ever at the throne of G-od 



ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 199 

Asks mercy for thee : prays for mercy for thee, 
With tears in Heaven ! 

Alv. Alvar was not murder'd. 

Be calm ! Be calm, sweet maid ! 

Ter. (wildly.) Nay, nay, but tell me ! 

(a pause, then presses her forehead.) 

O 'tis lost again ! 
This dull confused pain — 

(a pause, she gazes at Alvar.) 

Mysterious man ! 
Methinks I cannot fear thee : for thine eye 
Doth swim with love and pity — Well ! Ordonio — • 
Oh my foreboding heart ! And he suborn' d thee, 
And thou didst spare his life ? Blessings shower 

on thee, 
As many as the drops twice counted o'er 
In the fond faithful heart of his Teresa ! 

Alv. I can endure no more. The Moorish 
sorcerer 
Exists but in the stain upon this face. 
That picture — 

Ter. (advances towards him.) Ha ! speak on I 
Alv. Beloved Teresa ! 

It told but half the truth. let this portrait 
Tell all — that Alvar lives — that he is here ! 



200 ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 

Thy much deceived but ever faithful Alvar. 

[Takes her portrait from his neck, and gives 
it her. 

Ter. (receiving the portrait.) 
The same — it is the same. Ah ! Who art thou ? 
Nay I will call thee, Alvar. (She falls on his neck.) 

Alv. O joy unutterable ! 

But hark ! a sound as of removing bars 
At the dungeon's outer door. A brief, brief 

while 
Conceal thyself, my love ! It is Ordonio. 
For the honour of our race, for our dear father ; 
O for himself too (he is still my brother) 
Let me recall him to his nobler nature, 
That he may wake as from a dream of murder ! 
O let me reconcile him to himself, 
Open the sacred source of penitent tears, 
And be once more his own beloved Alvar. 

Ter. O my all- virtuous love ! I fear to leave 
thee 
With that obdurate man. 

Alv. Thou dost not leave me ! 

But a brief while retire into the darkness : 
O that my joy could spread its sunshine round 
thee! 

Ter. The sound of thy voice shall be my music ! 



ADDITIONS IN " REMORSE." 201 

[Retiring, she returns hastily and embracing 
Alvar.] 
Alvar ! my Alvar ! am I sure I hold thee ? 
Is it no dream ? thee in my arms, my Alvar ! 

[Exit 



( 202 ) 



KPILOGUE 

TO MR. COLERIDGE'S NEW TRAGEDY CALLED 
"KEMOESE."* 

Written by the Author, and spoken by Miss Smith in the 
character of Tbbesa. 

Oh ! the procrastinating idle rogue, 
The Poet has just sent his Epilogue ; 
Ay, 'tis just like him ! — and the hand ! — 

(Poring over the manuscript) — The stick ! 
I could as soon decipher Arabic ! 
But, hark ! my wizard's own poetic elf 
Bids me take courage, and make one myself! 

An heiress, and with sighing swains in plenty, 
From blooming nineteen to full-blown five-and 

twenty, 
Life beating high, and youth upon the wing, 

A six years' absence was a heavy thing !" 
Heavy ! — nay, let's describe things as they are, 
With sense and nature 'twas at open war — 

* Printed in the Morning Chronicle, Thursday, January 
28, 1813. 



EPILOGUE TO " REMORSE." 203 

Mere affectation to be singular. 

Yet ere yon overflow in condemnation, 

Think first of poor Teresa's education ; 

'Mid mountains wild, near billow-beaten rocks, 

Where sea- gales play'd with her dishevel' d 

locks, 
Bred in the spot where first to light she sprung, 
With no Academies for ladies young— 
Academies — (sweet phrase !) that well may claim 
From Plato's sacred grove th' appropriate name ! 

No morning visits, no sweet waltzing dances 

Then for reading — what but huge romances, 
With as stiff morals, leaving earth behind 'em, 
As the brass-clasp'd, brass-corner' d boards that 

bind 'em. 
Knights, chaste as brave, who strange adventures 

seek, 
And faithful loves of ladies, fair as meek ; 

Or saintly hermits' wonder-raising acts, 

Instead of — novels founded upon facts ! 

Which decently immoral, have the art 

To spare the blush, and undersap the heart ! 

Oh, think of these, and hundreds worse than 
these, 

Dire disimproving disadvantages, 

And grounds for pity — not for blame you'll see, 



"Q 



204 EPILOGUE TO " REMORSE." 

E'en in Teresa's six years' constancy. 

(Looking at the manuscript.) 
But stop ! what's this ? — Our Poet bids me say, 
That he has woo'd your feelings in this Play, 
By no too real woes, that make you groan, 
Recalling kindred griefs, perhaps your own, 
Yet with no image compensate the mind, 
Nor leave one joy for memory behind. 
He'd wish no loud laugh, from the sly, shrewd 

sneer, 
To unsettle from your eyes the quiet tear, 
That Pity had brought, and Wisdom would leave 

there. 
Now calm he waits your judgment ! (win or miss), 
By no loud plaudits saved, damn'd by no factious 

hiss. 



FINIS. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: March 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 458 090 4 



H 



